


Senior Season

by scobblelotcher



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Drifting Stars (Gravity Falls), Dipper Pines and Grunkle Stan Bonding, Ford Pines and Mabel Pines Bonding, Gen, im writing several thousand words of grunkle/kid mentorship instead of going to therapy, no betas we die like men, spoiler alert it gets fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 74,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27863113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scobblelotcher/pseuds/scobblelotcher
Summary: During the events of Not What He Seems, Mabel is sucked into the portal, leaving Dipper and Stan with the task of rescuing two twins (and the fear that neither will return). In the multiverse, Mabel meets a familiar face, and Ford takes his great-niece under his wing. Now, after four long years where everyone’s become a little older, a little wiser, and a little more lost, Stan and Dipper are finally ready to bring their twins home.
Comments: 122
Kudos: 113





	1. The Scariest Part of Halloween is the Threat of Interdimensional Annihilation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After four long years in the multiverse, Mabel is sure that nothing can shock her anymore, but is quickly proven wrong. Mixed POV.

_October 15, 2016_

Stanford Pines knew pretty much everything. 

Now, at this point, he had learned that it wasn’t wise to routinely operate in accordance with that knowledge unless he wanted to be proved wrong in a very painful manner, but that wisdom didn’t negate the fact that he _did_ know a lot. He could teach a graduate-level lecture about anything from quantum superposition of electrons to the complex political tensions in the Habsburg empire. He had felt the highs and lows of the human experience, in his home dimension and countless others. He knew his mind, and his feelings, and although he suspected there were a few more emotional surprises left in his life, it was safe enough for him to reasonably say that he knew how most things ought to feel. 

But _nothing_ could have prepared him for the way the wind left his lungs when Mabel calmly said, “Hey, your meal’s five units off, you qualify for the senior discount here.”

He lowered his menu to fix his great-niece with a stare. Normally, he would have said something smart like I beg your pardon, but his voice didn’t want to cooperate at the moment. 

Mabel’s attention was back on the menu, scanning down the breakfast items despite the fact that they were well into the afternoon. “Sixty and up. You’re sixty-two. Senior discount.”

And it was all that Stanford Filbrick Pines, proud holder of twelve doctorates, expert on interdimensional survival, and master of science, could do to say, “But I can’t be that old.”

Mabel let her menu fall towards him by several degrees, so that he might get a better view of her smirk. “You’re hardly a spring chicken.”

“I’m plenty springy!”

She laughed. The waitress paused at their table, expectant, and Ford nodded for Mabel to go first. She gave her default question (“I know it’s lunchtime, but would you guys be willing to do waffles anyway?”), received her response (“No.”), and ordered a sandwich. The waitress used two of her four arms to hold her notebook and pen to jot down Mabel’s order. The other two busied themselves with refilling hers and Ford’s water glasses. _How fortunate that hydration is a universal concern_ , Ford thought, not for the first time. 

“And your grandpa?” The waitress asked, looking from Mabel to Ford. 

He frowned. “Uncle.”

“Great uncle,” Mabel supplied. 

The waitress clicked her pen expectantly. 

“I’ll have the same,” he said after a pregnant pause, plucking Mabel’s menu and stacking it with his before placing it in the waitress’s waiting hand. “And we’d like it to go.”

He glanced at his niece. If she was annoyed to hear that they wouldn’t be dining in, she hid it well in front of the waitress. Mabel waited until she was gone before snorting. “That was out of character.”

“What?”

“You. Willingly providing private information that nobody asked for.”

Ford busied himself with a sip of water. Then, coolly, “Do you like having your meals paid for?”

Over the foggy rim of his glass, he watched her roll her eyes, and resisted the urge to mimic the smug smile she’d abandoned. Truth be told, the presence of his niece over the last years had made him feel like he’d aged ten years instead of four. Keeping himself alive had been hard enough. The constant stress of protecting himself _and_ Mabel had taken its toll, but at least he had acquired an arsenal of classic guardian’s guilt trips to use as needed. 

“Is it really so bad, though?” Mabel asked, seemingly unrelenting in her quest to make him feel his age. “I mean, you knew you were going to be old at some point, eventually. Right?”

Ford sighed. To his dismay, when he heard his own sigh, it didn’t sound like the weary exhale of a brilliant scholar burdened by knowledge. It sounded like an old-man sigh: tired. Maybe a little emphysematic. “In all honesty, no. Even before I came through the portal, I always figured I’d die young.”

Mabel made a face, scrunching her nose up in displeasure. “That’s so sad and dramatic.”

“That would be an accurate assessment of my mental state at the time, yes.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I was a freakishly smart six-fingered anomaly hunter,” he said. “It’s a miracle I saw twenty-five, let alone _sixty-two.”_ He copied her wrinkled nose and creased mouth, then let himself give a rueful smile. “Seriously, kid, I look in the mirror and I wonder what happened.”

“Gross. Do me a favor and kill me after the first wrinkle.”

“Morbid today, aren’t we?”

“You started it.”

The food was set down by the disgruntled waitress, and Ford noted with a weary acceptance that she had, in fact, applied the senior discount. He paid her, Mabel scooped up the bag, and they were on their way back to the inn, looping through the back alleys of the unfamiliar city with the confidence of a native. 

After ten minutes, that confidence proved unearned, because while they were certainly standing in front of a building, it was _not_ their destination. 

“I thought you said to turn northeast,” Mabel said behind him. 

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

She came to stand at his shoulder. Although he still refused to believe how tall she’d gotten, he could take solace in the fact that she was at least shorter than he was, standing level with the bottom of his nose. “Where’s the marketplace, then?”

Ford snorted and directed his attention to the skyline above them, studying the buildings. Maybe he could spot something familiar. “If I knew that, we’d be on the move.”

He wasn’t looking, but he knew she’d rolled her eyes ( _teenagers_ ). Then, a swift rustle of fabric, and she was grabbing his arm with a gasp. “Grunkle Ford, look!”

He tensed. Even as he followed her point with his eyes, his right hand was going to his holster, his left making a grab for the back of Mabel’s jacket to pull her behind him (why was she running _towards_ danger?) but she’d let go of his arm and she was too far ahead and he _missed_. That fruitless swipe gave him time to see that she had rushed up to the short black fence that surrounded the brick building in front of them, and she was leaning on it, bouncing on the balls of her feet and looking back at him like she couldn’t believe her eyes. 

He allowed himself three breaths to calm down before stepping up to the fence. “What? What am I looking at?”

Mabel pointed again, and around the corner of the school, he could see what looked like a sports pitch and a playground. “It’s a _school,_ ” Mabel announced in delight. 

His heart sank a little bit, but he tried to match her pleased tone when he spoke. “So it is.” When Mabel had joined him in the multiverse all those years ago, he’d known she would never be able to receive a traditional education, and had taught her himself. It didn’t matter that she was now at a point where she could have snuck into a graduate lecture on theoretical physics and followed along—she was a social creature. He knew she cared more about the experience of high school than the education of high school. 

So, taking in the way she was staring near open-mouthed at the building, he had to say _something._ “It looks like a secondary institution,” he said. “I would guess equivalent to a middle school on earth.”

Mabel shook her head. “No, look at the vehicles.” She jerked her head to a small parking lot near the other side of the building, and Ford had to admit, it was definitely a student parking lot. Beat-up second hand transports, the kind that alien parents would be comfortable sending off with a new driver. He glanced back at her, a small, disbelieving smile spreading on his face. 

It didn’t go unnoticed. “What?” Mabel asked defensively. 

“Nothing,” Ford said. It wasn’t nothing. It was amusement that she couldn’t see how far beyond high school she’d progressed. This was not the first time she’d accurately analyzed a new obstacle simply by taking in her surroundings. She had become, in a word, brilliant, and he was proud to be related to her. But at the same time, it really was nothing, because Mabel _wanted_ high school very badly, and a stable social group was the one thing she couldn’t ever have again. So he stuck with his one-word answer and nodded at a building down the street. “I think we need to go that way.”

Mabel dragged her toe through the mulch before following him. “I was supposed to start twelfth grade in September,” she said wistfully, casting one more look at the school. Then, softer, “I wonder how Dipper’s year is going.”

Ford buried his wince. He had long since lost count of earth-months, but Mabel assured him that they were well into October. Had she been silently dwelling on this for months? “I’m sure he’s doing well. From your descriptions of his affinity for science and the progressions of our home planet, I bet he’s bound for a stellar college.”

Mabel smiled at her shoes before throwing a light elbow into his side. “You won’t be mad if he skips your alma mater?”

He scoffed. “I’d be angrier if he _did_ go to Backupsmore.” He felt her hand nudge at his, and he took it. They’d learned a long time ago that they were less likely to be split across dimensions if they were touching, and it had become a habit. 

They reached the building Ford had recognized, and to his relief, they were now on the street with the bustling marketplace they’d passed through on their way to the diner. It was just as crowded as it had been before, so Ford did his duty as the tall one and shouldered his way through the crowd, Mabel following in his wake, led by his hand. He could hear her exchanging pleasantries with the merchants, returning their flirtatious invitations to buy their merchandise with playful banter. He rolled his eyes, but didn’t intervene. She could have her fun. 

“Matching knives!” One merchant called. “Set of knives for the lady and her father!”

Father, he could get behind. Clearly this merchant was better at flattery than a certain four-armed waitress. He should nip this one in the bud, though, he knew how much his niece liked an aesthetically pleasing knife. “Come along, Mabel.”

“Wait, but I need a new whetstone,” she protested, and he stopped as she tugged at his hand. Pulling him along, she was already heading for the booth. He narrowly avoided a family of squat round creatures to follow her. 

“Why didn’t you say something at the depot in 4X&?” He demanded. 

“I did, we got chased out by you-know-who, remember?”

Damn. He did remember the unsightly bounty hunter that had thrown off their trip. And he had agreed that she needed a new whetstone. Was this typical frazzled-guardian forgetfulness, or was this the big six-two setting in?

They approached the merchant, who seemed thrilled to have lured in a pair of humans. “Ah, bipedal with opposable thumbs! You’re the very models of knife-wielders,” they flattered. 

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” Mabel said immediately, a bright smile on her face. She dropped his hand, but stayed close. “With tentacles like that, I bet you make a blade into a blur.”

The merchant’s wide-set eyes brightened. “What can I help you with today?”

Earlier in his sudden uncle-hood, Ford would have handled this interaction with a sullen stare and brusque tones. However, he’d learned pretty early on that Mabel’s natural propensity towards connecting with the merchants generally led to better prices and less being chased out of the marketplace by angry aliens with weapons. He’d step on her toes if she started getting too personal with them, but for the most part, he was simply backup and bank. When they could afford to buy with money, that is. Last week and last dimension, he and Mabel had (quite by accident) caught a local scourge and turned him in to the authorities. They’d been awarded a handsome number of universal units, and were currently living like kings. 

Mabel’s flattery brought him back to the present, even as he fingered the string of the change pouch in his coat pocket. “Well, your wares are just so pristine, I _know_ a reputable knife distributer like yourself would never sell anything less than a quality whetstone.”

One tentacle disappeared under the booth. “Whetstones, eh? Well, you’d be right, I’ve got a good collection. What kind of blade do you need it for?”

“Multipurpose,” Mabel answered breezily. 

The merchant paused as if waiting for more clarification, but when Mabel didn’t offer any, they pulled a box up from under their tabletop. It rattled loudly when they set it down, and they began to rifle through it. “And how portable were you thinking?”

“Extremely.”

They dug past one or two more stones, then brightened. “This’ll be the one you’re wanting, then.” They pulled out a stone that seemed to be made of fossilized night sky. It was a rich, inky blue, occasionally interrupted by a luminescent patch of white. “It’s from dimension 1*_7, and it’ll protect your blade from nicks and dents as well as sharpen it.”

Ford glanced at Mabel. It was pretty enough to throw her off her game. Sure enough, he could practically see her resisting the urge to grab the stone and bolt. “How much?” She asked.

The merchant waved a tentacle thoughtfully. “Normally five hundred units. For you… two fifty.”

“One fifty.”

The merchant scowled. “You insult me.”

Mabel wet her lips, glancing at Ford. “Well… we could always go to 1*_7 and get one ourselves, for free.”

It was Ford’s turn to resist an urge—this one to laugh. Mabel knew what she was doing. He nodded in agreement, ready to follow her lead. She turned to go. 

“Wait!” The merchant said. Mabel looked at him expectantly. They wrung their tentacles. “...one seventy five.”

“One sixty,” Mabel countered confidently. 

“Deal,” the merchant grumbled, notably less playful than they’d been before. Ford counted out three fifty-unit coins and one ten, trading the bits for the whetstone, which was surprisingly lightweight.

“Have a good day!” Mabel said brightly. The merchant returned her cheery wave with a grimace. Ford pushed her along with a hand between her shoulders. 

“They were nice,” Mabel decided, admiring the new stone before slipping it into her satchel. 

Ford glanced over his shoulder at the merchant, relieved to see that they’d already caught another customer. “They didn’t care much for your bargaining tactics.”

“That’s a personal problem.”

>>>>> • <<<<<

Halloween at the Mystery Shack was in full swing. The parking field, the exterior, and even the exhibits in the shack had been decked out in full spooky splendor. The gift shop was selling candy corn on the cob. Plastic skeletons lie waiting in every closet. Soos had taken to wearing a pumpkin on his head while giving tours as Mystery Man. It had gotten stuck after the first day, but in the world’s most stressful trust exercise involving the pumpkined Soos, Wendy, and her axe, they’d developed a removable version, and the show continued. 

In the basement, though, something far scarier was going down. 

Dipper Pines grunted as he readjusted his grip on the barrel, pouring the last of the radioactive waste into the valve and setting it down with a loud echo. He straightened, breathing heavily, but he couldn’t stop staring at the barrel. It was in. It was the last one, and it was finally in. He glanced at the corner. They had four more barrels of the stuff, just in case. Just in case. He didn’t want to think about just in case. If everything went right, he would have Mabel back in seventeen hours. 

“Is it ready?” 

Dipper peeled off his latex gloves, balling them up and tossing them into the garbage can. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” He turned to face Stan. “I…”

His voice abandoned him. Stan just set his jaw and nodded. “Okay. You—you’re gonna stay in here. No matter what happens, you do _not_ go onto the floor.”

Dipper nodded. They’d discussed what would happen when they finally fixed the machine before. 

“Okay,” Stan said again, and Dipper followed a couple steps behind as he made his way to the control console. Flipped a couple of switches, pulled a lever. “That should set the timer—“

Dipper’s feet left the ground, and he squinted against the violent blue light. He could barely hear Stan’s shocked shout over the sudden noise. “What’s going on?!”

“I don’t know!” Stan’s shout sounded very far away. “I don’t know!”

Dipper stared at the portal. It didn’t look right—the light was flashing, sputtering, and the sigils glowed red instead of multicolored. He thought of the study on the floor above them, and before he knew what he was doing, he reached forward and slammed into the lever. Gravity returned, and he landed nearly on top of Stan and slid off his great-uncle, who managed to grab him by the collar before his nose collided with the floor. 

“Thanks,” Dipper said, pulling his knees under him and standing up. Stan stood, too, swelling to his full stature. The effect was diminished somewhat as Dipper had been the same height as Stan for months now. 

“What the hell happened?” The old man demanded. “And why did you shut it off?!”

“It wasn’t right!” Dipper shouted back, gesturing at the portal. To his immense relief, it looked unharmed. “We have to figure out what went wrong, why it didn’t start on the timer, and then we can start it again.”

“Maybe it just needed to warm up?”

“Did it do that last time?”

Stan bristled, and didn’t reply. Dipper set his jaw. “Then it’s settled. We troubleshoot. I’m not screwing this up.”

“You think I want to wait any longer?” Stan’s tone was agitated, defensive. They’d had this fight too many times for Dipper to rise to the bait.

“No, I don’t,” he sighed instead of fighting back. That shut Stan up. 

A thought occurred to Dipper. He didn’t want to think about it, but the instant it formed in his head, he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.

“What is it?” Stan said warily. He knew Dipper’s tendency to spiral on what-ifs, and he knew the warning faces. 

Dipper spoke slowly. “What if that meant we’re only getting one of them back?”

It took Stan a moment to reply, but when he spoke, Dipper could tell that he had taken the question seriously, and a part of him understood that Stan had pondered the idea before. “If we only get one… we get them upstairs. You make ‘em feel safe, and I come down and turn it on again. And again, and again, however many times it takes.”

Dipper swallowed. “Okay.”

Stan rubbed his hands together, the clap loud in the wake of the portal’s rumble. “Okay,” he agreed. “Let’s figure out what went wrong and do it again.”

>>>>> • <<<<<

The whetstone tugging at her pocket and lunch hanging on her opposite elbow, Mabel felt like the day could have gone a lot worse. The school had put a damper on the cheerful mood that teasing Ford had given her, but haggling never failed to brighten her day. She liked to think that it was a family talent, and every time she reached the point where she was ready to walk away from a deal, she was reminded of the time Stan lost his hands in a similar stance with the Hand Witch. 

Wow, she’d thought about Stan and Dipper on the same day. It had been a couple of months since that had happened. She felt guilty for that, of course she did—they were her _family,_ she should be thinking about them all the time—but most days, she and Ford just didn’t have the brain space to dwell on anything except the fight. Last week’s bounty had made for something of a vacation for the duo, and while she had been beyond grateful to take a hot shower and sleep in real bed, their camping packs had loomed in the corner of the room, a constant reminder that this was a temporary reprieve. Clearly this break had encouraged her brain to go soft. She liked being soft, but there were downsides. 

The market stretched on for several blocks. Mabel assumed that they would go straight back to the hotel, but Ford was eyeing a stand of high-tech gauntlets that seemed to be loaded with weapons, and they seemed to be fitted for a large spectrum of species. “Want to go see if they’ve got one for you?” Mabel asked. Ford nodded. Mabel patted his shoulder. “I’m going to go check that produce stand. Can I have fifty units?” 

Ford gave her a look. She rolled her eyes. “I’m not gonna spend all of it. Relax.”

He gave her a coin. “I wasn’t worried about that. Don’t go too far.”

“I won’t! And I like the red glove for you, for the record,” she said, grinning and spinning on her heel. She ducked past a clump of patrons gathered around a street performer, tucking the coin safely in the breast pocket of her coat as she approached the produce stand. 

“Ready for a midday snack?” The vendor asked. 

Mabel sucked her teeth and shook her head. “I’m afraid not. But the colors are just beautiful!”

The vendor’s saccharine smile vanished. “Colors are for customers. Shoo!”

Mabel gave a good-natured shrug and moved along. Again, she was reminded of the Gravity Falls market, and Stan’s coaching as they wandered through. “Don’t hang out too long in any one place, and even if you want something, pretend you don’t. You don’t _have_ to buy, but they need to turn a profit.”

Another booth, maybe half a block down, was selling art supplies. Mabel glanced over her shoulder. She could see Ford at the gauntlet booth, holding up a hand and comparing it to one of the vendor’s wares. He would be fine. 

She pushed her way towards the next stall. Maybe she could find something nice for him for Rosh Hashanah—a never-ending inkwell, maybe, or a fountain pen that automatically translated languages. She could spot both of those things in the booth, and was sorely regretting not asking for more units, when her pocket began screaming. 

The piercing beep that made market patrons everywhere groan and hold their ears only made her head snap up and towards Ford. When she locked in on him, he was already pushing through the crowd. She darted around people, pushing through, twisting around—

But then there was a tug in her gut, as if someone had driven a fishhook through her bellybutton and was reeling her in, and the whole world vanished in a blur of blue. She braced herself for impact, wondering what kind of landscape she’d be spat into—

Black. 

That’s all there was for far too long, just black. Panic rose in her gut. Jumping dimensions normally happened much faster than this. The last time a jump had taken this long, she’d wound up in—

“Shooting Star? Ho-ly smokes, you grew up!”

Mabel froze. There was the fear, yes, but more than anything else, the primary emotion she was feeling was confusion. “This isn’t the nightmare dimension,” she said. 

“Sure it is,” came the grating reply. “I guess your nightmare’s changed over the years, is all. Gotta say, utter nothingness seems a little basic for you.”

“Oh… thank you?”

“How ya been?” 

Talking to a disembodied voice was annoying, she decided. If he was going to mock her, she wanted to at least see his face. Maybe that was the point of the nightmare: total nothingness. “I mean, it could have been worse,” she said, bringing one hand up to her neck to absently rub the small star tattoo just behind her left ear. “Is there any particular reason you brought me here?”

“I didn’t bring you here!” Bill said, popping suddenly into existence mere inches from her face. She recoiled, startled, and he laughed. “Ha! I love it when humans are scared of me. But no, I didn’t bring you here. I sure am glad to see you though!”

That was suspicious. She squinted at him. “Why would you be glad to see me?”

“Because!” Bill kicked his ankles up and reclined on a chair that wasn’t there. “It means yours and Stanford’s dumb brothers are kicking up the portal again!”

Her stomach hit her feet. “What?”

“It _means_ ,” Bill said, slow and gleeful, “That my door is opening!”

“No, I know what it means, you stupid triangle,” she said, waving a hand to quiet him. _Come on, Mabel, buy time_. “I’m trying to process it, can you give me a minute?”

“Why would I—no! I thrive off of your distress, I’m not going to _give you a minute!_ Where’s Stanford?”

“I thought you didn’t care about us now that we’re not on earth anymore.”

“Oh, no, you don’t matter to the plan,” Bill assured her. “I just enjoy seeing him struggle.”

Mabel crossed her arms, dropping her hand from her neck. She’d be fine. The tattoo hid the scar where a homing device had been inserted last year. It sent a signal to the collidascopes she and Ford had built years ago. He had one as well, a flat chip the size of an ibuprofen tablet, planted in his lower neck under a tattoo he’d gotten years prior. If she pulled the device out of her pocket, she would be able to see his little maroon dot and her own hot pink one, and she would be able to locate the quickest path back to him through existing dimensional cracks. The nightmare realm was smack in the center of the multiverse, and she and Ford hadn’t been too far from the central rings, so she expected that he’d be there within the hour. 

She wasn’t about to whip that out in front of Bill, though. 

Instead, she frowned. “That isn’t very nice. _You_ used _him,_ it’s not exactly like you have a valid grudge to hold.”

Bill swelled and turned scarlet. **_“HE—“_ **

Against her better judgement, she shrank back a little bit. Bill calmed himself, returning to his usual size of apparent harmlessness. “He _destroyed my portal._ My chance at human dominion!”

“Good thing, too,” Mabel said. “Americans are prideful. They wouldn’t like some dumb tortilla chip waltzing in from Bumfuck, Oregon and declaring his supremacy.”

Bill squinted at her. “Are we allowed to swear now? I didn’t think we were allowed to do that before.”

She shrugged. “All I know is that I woke up one day and I knew I could. No turning back.”

“It kind of ruins the whole innocent-kid thing you had going on the last time I saw you.”

Mabel wrinkled her nose. “Um, if _you_ had just left Ford alone and not completely ruined his life, mine would be just fine right now. Any ruining in my family was your fault.”

“Tomato, tomahto,” Bill replied. “You’re not as much fun as you used to be.”

“You sound like a baby boomer. And not the fun kind like my grunkles.”

Bill squinted his eye. “What the hell is a baby boomer? Is that someone who explodes infants? I think I just learned about some humans I might _like!”_

Her pocket buzzed, and she had about a half-second’s warning before it started screaming. That was sooner that she’d expected. Bill shouted and covered the sides of his head. (Why would he do that? Mabel wondered. He doesn’t have ears.) “What is that?!”

“My ride,” she answered calmly, throwing up a peace sign as she heard the dimension tear behind her. “See you, homie.”

A six-fingered grip wrapped around her extended arm and yanked her backwards. She fell willingly, watched the nightmare realm become an inky tear in an otherwise pleasant meadow, and she watched the seam stitch itself back up as suddenly as Ford had torn through it. Her heart was racing now, just from the action, but before she could turn to say something clever, she was turned by her shoulders and wrapped in a hug. This would work, she decided, but before she could hug him back, her great-uncle was holding her at arm’s length, one hand moving to her chin to tilt her head from side to side. 

“Are you alright? Are you hurt? What happened?”

“I’m okay,” she said, probably seven times before he heard it. “I’m fine.”

He stared at her for another moment before pulling her back into another hug. She wasn’t about to complain, just tightened her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his coat. She felt him press a shaky kiss to the top of her head. 

As happy as she would be to stay like that for as long as he would, Bill’s words were eating at her. “Grunkle Ford?”

“Mm?”

“We gotta talk,” she said seriously, holding him by his elbows and staring at him. “Bill said something that… I don’t know. We have to talk. But I don’t—“

He picked up on her hesitation, patting her upper arms before turning away, offering her his hand. “Come on, let’s get back to that dimension and grab our things from the inn. I can retrace my steps. We’ll find some secluded dimension and we can discuss whatever he said. Sound good?”

Mabel swallowed, glancing over her shoulder to where the tear had been just moments ago. “He’s in there,” Ford said firmly, taking her hand and squeezing it. “He can’t get here, not right now.”

“Yeah,” she agreed distantly, starting to nod. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Ford started off, leading them through several weak spots before Mabel found herself back in the dizzying marketplace. The entire trip, she couldn’t stop thinking about the basement of Stan’s shack, and if he knew the ramifications of whatever he was doing down there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First GF fic! Updates every Sunday :)


	2. A Human Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford Pines came to terms with the fact that he is the multiverse's sole representative of Dimension 46'\ a long time ago. Ford's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reuploaded because i've made some formatting changes. story is still the same :)

_July 30, 2012_

As soon as he spotted the demon, he was on edge. It was time for him to leave this bar, the city, hell, the whole dimension. He knew a rogue Henchmaniac when he saw one. Better to avoid potential trouble entirely. 

He had to leave the bar without making a scene, he figured, so he stood and gathered his things like any other patron, and made for the door. He had to walk right past it, but hopefully, it would mind its own business. No such luck. 

“Stanford Pines,” it said, and he winced. So it was here for him. He’d rather face it than bolt. 

“What do you want?” He asked, wary. Ready to run. 

“He’s got a message for you,” the demon—the hot pink one, he’d never learned her name—drawled, rolling a coin over her knuckles as she leaned her elbows against the bar. “Says it’s up to you to answer.”

He scoffed. “Right. Well, I’ll spare you the transmission—no.”

“Slow your roll, smart guy, you might want to hear it.”

Ford sighed, then fell silent, giving her a glare as a cue to say what she’d come to say. 

She smiled. “He managed to get his hands on a human child from your dimension. Twelve years old. Weird little thing. And in six hours, he’s going to kill her.”

A human child. A girl. His knuckles tightened around the glass, so hard he thought it would crack. How had a human girl managed to make her way into the nightmare realm? 

“So what’s the deal?” He heard himself say. “I follow you, my life for hers?” A twelve year old would never survive the multiverse on her own, she’d be dead in a day. It would be more merciful to let Bill kill her. 

The demon rolled her eye. “No. Nothing that basic. I’m walking away. But the back door of the Fearamid is going to be open. If you can sneak in, get the kid, and make it out, you get to live your days traveling the multiverse. If we catch you, you both die.”

“The most dangerous game,” Ford muttered. 

“Globnar’s more dangerous than this,” the demon commented. 

He glanced at her. “It’s a—never mind.”

She lifted her chin. “So?”

It would be a death sentence. Suicide, really. Every instinct was screaming for self-preservation. 

A human child. 

“You don’t have to give me an answer,” she said, standing up and tossing the coin in the air before snatching it and stowing it in her pocket. “But just know that if you walk away, her blood’s on your hands.”

She strode out of the bar, leaving him to stare at the spot in the air where the coin had flashed. 

_ >>>>> _ • _ <<<<< _

_October 15, 2016_

He watched Mabel’s movements carefully as they packed up the hotel room. If her encounter with Bill had left her with any stress symptoms beyond whatever she had to tell him, she was hiding it like a professional. 

“Is that everything?” He asked in a low voice, casting a look around the room. Mabel held out his toothbrush in response. 

“Ah, yes. Thank you.”

He stowed it in his pack, then followed her out the door. She already had her collidascope out. “It looks like there’s a tear to 0!5 a half-mile away,” she reported. 

“That’s an excellent choice,” he said. “Plenty of connections if we wind up somewhere crowded.”

“It’s just the closest,” Mabel replied absently, not glancing at him before heading to the stairs. He blinked twice before following her. Whatever Bill had said really must be eating at her, because yes, she had her moments, but it had been years since her head had been this far in the clouds. 

They checked out of the inn and made the jump, emerging in a lush green wood. Mabel waited for Ford to seal the breach before inhaling and screaming for five entire seconds. When she shut her mouth, he waited, listening, but he couldn’t hear any responses besides wildlife. 

“Okay,” Mabel said, running a hand through her hair before clapping her hands and rubbing them together. She inhaled. 

“Bill said that Stan’s starting the portal again. That’s why I got pulled away. He’s trying to get it going, and he’s close.”

“That’s incredibly dangerous!” 

Mabel nodded. “He should know how bad an idea it is.”

“The risk involved—and Bill _knows,_ he’ll be watching for the next fluctuation! He could—“

“Get through to earth, I know,” Mabel agreed. 

“Of all the stupid—why would he do that?”

“Don’t call him stupid, he’s doing it because of us,” Mabel said. “He started it for you, and I got pulled in by mistake. Now it’s for both of us. Don’t call him stupid.”

Ford swelled, but Mabel’s expression was just as fierce as it always was when she was defending Stan. He deflated. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“He said brothers. Dipper’s in on it, too.” Worry crept into her voice, and Ford’s voice faltered at the expression on her face. “Why is he still in Gravity Falls? He’s supposed to go home after the summer’s over.”

“I don’t know,” Ford said. “Maybe Stan wanted his help.”

Mabel shook her head. “Stan didn’t want us doing anything paranormal,” she said slowly. “He had a good reason for keeping us out of the basement. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Ford watched Mabel drag her toe in the soil before saying, “So what do we do?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. “I—I suppose we could take the fight to Bill. Distract him, so that if Stan opens the portal again, he can’t come through.”

“But we only get the warning five seconds prior,” Mabel pointed out. “What are we going to do, just hop between border dimensions until the collidascopes go off?”

“It would work,” he said defensively. 

_ >>>>> _ • _ <<<<< _

2012

The demon had said to use the back door, so naturally, Ford snuck in through the front. He’d tucked a hood over his head, told the guard he was a demon from another dimension, and couldn’t believe that they hadn’t questioned it. He was certain that he was walking right into a trap. 

He darted through the cavernous place, checking room after room, and there was no sign of a child. After the fourteenth door, he felt sick, and a little stupid. He’d been tricked by Bill again. 

But then, as he passed an open door, he stopped, backpedaling to gape open-mouthed at the interior of the room. Five feet in the air, a pink dreambubble that bore the shooting star zodiac sigil floated in the center of the room. It pulsed with light, as if it was alive, and inside, he could see a silhouette that could reasonably belong to a child. 

His eyes scored over the zodiac sigil again and again. This was why he’d taken this child, it had to be, Ford reasoned. Without her, if he managed to break into 46’/, the zodiac couldn’t be completed. Well, he supposed he was also missing from the mix, but two down was better than one. 

But who was this child? And how was he supposed to get her out of the dreambubble? 

He shut the door behind him, locking it, and thought for a moment. Pink light continued to pulse from the bubble, a low hum of energy permeating the room and threatening to give him a headache. Could he puncture the bubble by force? As the thought occurred to him, he lifted his hands to try and touch the surface, but before his palm made contact, the figure inside sat bolt upright and screamed. He could hear her, and he could see her, but she sounded very far away, as though she was underwater. He recoiled, but she didn’t stop--it sounded like she was calling a name. 

He watched in horror as the shadow raised her arms to bat away an invisible attacker, before curling into the fetal position, shoulders shaking with muffled sobs. The bubble shook, but held.

Ford’s resolve hardened. He was getting this kid, and they were getting far, far away.

He knelt, not taking his eyes off of the bubble, but shrugging one arm out of his coat and removing the strap across his chest. His prized weapon (a spear with a projectile atomic destabilizing capability) heavy in his hands, he fixed his coat and stood back up, frowning at the bubble. Then, experimentally, he prodded it.

Instantly, it popped, and the girl’s cries barely had time to shift to a startled yelp before she hit the ground.

“I’m sorry!” Ford said, backing up a step. “I didn’t expect that to work! Come on, we need to go.”

The girl scrambled to her feet, breathing unsteadily, and he glanced over her, but he didn’t have time to take a hearty look at the child. Pink sweater, long brown hair, big brown eyes red with tears, heavily favoring her right leg. That was enough information for now. But apparently the girl had different priorities, because she was staring at him as though she planned to memorize his face. 

“We don’t have time for this,” he said urgently, reaching for her hand, but she recoiled violently, shaking her head. There was that limp, she must have damaged her left foot in the fall. She looked from his face to the weapon in his hand and backed up. Before he could do or say anything, she’d balled her fists and turned her head to the ceiling. 

“A BUBBLE IN A BUBBLE?!” She shouted. “REALLY? YOU STUPID TRIANGLE, LET ME OUT! I’M NOT FALLING FOR IT THIS TIME, JUST LET ME G--!”

Blanching, Ford lunged forward and covered her mouth in one hand. She instantly struggled against him, and he withdrew his hand quickly before hearing her teeth chomp together as she snapped her jaw shut. He gave her a scandalized look before saying, “What are you doing? We have to be quiet or he’ll hear us!”

The girl gave him a scathing once-over before speaking at the ceiling again. “You didn’t even do a good job on this one!” She said in an angry whisper. “Stan’s more old-man than this! You’re gonna have to try harder!”

Stan?

He grabbed her again, by the wrist this time. “Hey!” She protested.

“Just stop screaming for a second and listen to me, kid,” he said. “What’s your name?”

Startled by his intensity, she answered him honestly. “Mabel.”

“Mabel, I don’t know why you think you know me, or how you wound up here, but you seem to be familiar with Bill, so I trust that you know if we stay here, he will kill us. He isn’t tricking us right now, but if he catches us, he will. We have to move.”

She stared at him, eyes searching between his. “Okay,” she said, but he didn’t think she really trusted him yet. Smart girl. “I hurt my ankle, though, I can’t—“

He scooped her up and held her on his hip, cutting off her protests. She really was a human twelve year old, he marveled as he made for the door, all bones and likely surviving on sugar alone. He turned the knob, peering into the hallway before darting out of the room.

“Six fingers,” Mabel commented, looking from his hand to his face. 

“Yes,” he said sharply, resisting the lifelong impulse to drop her and stuff his hands in his pockets. 

“Like Stan’s creepy journals,” she mused. 

He really did almost drop her that time. This was too much. Her zodiac sigil, Stan, the journals: this girl was not here on accident. He really had walked straight into a trap by Bill. He forced his tone into something resembling curiosity. “Who’s Stan?”

“You should know, you’ve got his face,” Mabel said coldly. “I know this is just Bill messing with me, but he built you wrong. I don’t know why.”

“I told you, I’m not Bill,” Ford said through gritted teeth. “How do you know Stan Pines?”

Mabel stared at him. “I didn’t tell you my last name.”

“Am I wrong?” He asked. 

She shook her head slowly, brow furrowed, and set her jaw before she spoke. “Stanford Pines is my great-uncle.”

He nearly dropped her. “Stanford?” Was all he could say. 

Mabel worried with a strand of her hair, voice wavering. “I—he just goes by Stan, but I don’t even know if that’s his real name. Dipper and I learned a lot about him yesterday—fake IDs, forged passports…” She trailed off, leaving Ford to wonder who Dipper was, and what kind of mess Stan had left for his… daughter? Grand-niece? 

“All I know for sure,” Mabel continued, “Is that he was hiding that stupid doomsday gateway in the basement and he turned it on—“

“He WHAT?!”

“—and I got pulled through to wherever I am now.” She paused, listing her head thoughtfully. “Maybe I’m dead.”

“You’re not dead,” he told her, biting his tongue to keep a ‘yet’ from slipping out. “And I’m not Bill. Can you just hang tight for a couple more minutes while I figure out how to get us out of here?”

He pressed his back against a corner, peering around into the empty hallway before running through the intersection. Mabel responded by lowering her head against his shoulder and nodding.

“Okay,” he said, more to himself than to her. At least she wouldn’t be shouting anymore. 

If he made for the back door, they’d be caught, without a shadow of a doubt. Cipher would be expecting that. He thought about trying to get to a higher floor, escape through a window, but wouldn’t Bill know that he would know not to go out the back door? The windows would be monitored, too. 

He reached the conclusion and winced, stopping.

“What is it?” Mabel whispered. “Why did we stop?”

“I—You’re not going to like this,” Ford whispered back. “But I think we have to find a place to hide for a little while. Bill knows I’m here, thinks I came for you. He’ll be watching all the exits. We need to stay put until he thinks I didn’t show. Then, when he goes to the room he was holding you in--then we can get out.”

“How long is that going to take?”

He glanced at his watch. “My time is up in two hours.”

Mabel twisted in his grip, glancing around. “How about there?” She pointed at a door labeled Custodial. Odd. Ford didn’t realize Bill knew how to clean. 

He hiked Mabel up and pushed through the door, giving the dark interior a cautious once-over to see if there was anything besides mops and buckets before ducking inside and pulling it shut. He put Mabel down, setting her on an overturned crate. She winced.

“Can I take a look at your foot?” Ford asked after a moment. 

There was a rustle of hair and fabric--she must be nodding. It was too dark to make anything out. “Here, hang on.” She moved around a little bit, then made a small sound of satisfaction. A moment later, and the key on her sweater was glowing. 

Ford blinked. “Okay, then.” He knelt, propping her leg up on his, and frowned at it, listing her ankle from side to side. “Does it hurt when I do this?”

“Yes,” she gasped. “I don’t--I don’t think it’s broken, but it got pulled, there was a rope on it when I went through the big triangle thing.”

Ford swallowed. If there had been any ambiguity before, he knew now that she had definitely been in the basement of his laboratory. What had Stan been doing?

He glanced around, looking for something to splint her foot with. He reached for a roll of cloth, but recoiled violently when he realized what he’d been about to grab. His heart jumped into his throat, and he barked louder than he meant to, “Turn your sweater off.”

“Why?” 

“Now!”

Mabel obliged, and they were plunged back into darkness. For a minute, all Ford could hear was his heart pounding. He’d been wrong. He’d glanced into the closet and he’d seen sticks and buckets because that’s what logically belonged in a custodial closet, but he’d been wrong. The sticks he’d thought were broom handles were bones: six-foot rib fragments, belonging to a creature bigger than he cared to contemplate. The bandages he’d reached for, he’d realized a moment before grabbing them, was leathery skin, wound around a spool. He did not want to think about how such skin had been acquired and treated. 

“I’m going to open my backpack,” he said slowly, moving as not to startle the girl. “I think I’ve got some first aid supplies in there.”

She was quiet, save for the soft thump of her heel against the crate as she swung her good leg. “If you’re real,” Mabel said, humoring the possibility, “What’s your name?”

Ford located the bandage and unwound a couple of layers, peeling off Mabel’s sock and shoe and setting her foot in the proper position. He began to wrap it, wondering how to tell her, where to start, how it all connected. “My name,” he said, looping the bandage under her foot to lock her ankle in place, “Is Stanford Pines. So if Stan Pines is your great-uncle, and I’m certainly not your father, I’m assuming Shermie is your…”

“Grandpa,” Mabel said in a very small voice. “You know my family.”

“By the sounds of it, Mabel, I am your family.”

“But then—where have you been? If you’re Stanford, then who’s Stan?”

After filling the girl in on his and Stanley’s checkered past, using enough detail and description that his story would fit in a 22-minute television episode, Mabel had just one more question. 

“Have you been alone this whole time?”

He pursed his lips, leaning his head back against the wall he’d moved to sit against after finishing her ankle. “You meet a lot of interesting people living like this,” he said in a non-answer. 

“But you don’t have family. A team.”

“I… no. I didn’t, anyway.”

Mabel was silent, curiously so, and Ford took the cue to continue. “Mabel, you seem like a smart girl. I… you know that you can’t go back.”

“I know,” she said, as though it was obvious. “Grunkle Stan has to turn the portal on from his side.”

“No,” Ford said, and his chest ached a little bit, because she wasn’t getting it and he was going to have to drive it home, and he knew how it felt. “I mean that even though he managed to turn the machine on, by some miracle, it’ll be next to impossible for him to activate it again. And for the sake of the universe, I hope he doesn’t manage it.”

“You don’t want to go home?” Her voice rose a little, as though she would start crying again.

“I’d love to,” he answered earnestly. “But it’s not meant to be. It’s too risky. If the safety of the universe is dependent on me staying out here, then I stay out here.”

“But… that means me too, now.”

“It does,” he said. His voice sounded odd in his ears. Strangled, thin. He didn’t know why it was so hard to talk. “But it isn’t so bad out here. There’s… there’s a lot of beauty in this place.”

“You’ve been here for thirty years,” she said quietly.

“Yes.”

“Do you miss Stan?”

His shoulders tightened. “Mabel, it’s complicated--”

“No, it isn’t,” she said, her voice going harsh. “Do you miss him, yes or no?”

He set his jaw and looked away from her, even though he couldn’t see her in the dark. 

She scoffed. “Yeah, you’re definitely his twin.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re both old-man stubborn,” the girl said. “You can say you miss him. It’s not like he can hear you. I get mad at my brother, too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss him when he’s gone.”

“Was that… Dipper?”

A pause; he could imagine her nodding. “Yeah. His real name’s Mason. You can’t tell him I told you that, though.”

“I’ll keep it under lock and key,” he assured her. She was quiet. That seemed odd for her. To be fair, he’d only known her for a matter of hours, but Mabel seemed like the type of child that Stan had once been, the kind of child that had one default setting: loud.

“You and I both know Stan,” Ford said, trying to get her talking. “And we’ve got plenty of time to learn about each other. Tell me what Dipper’s like?”

She sniffed, and his stomach dropped, but she was back to talking soon enough. Mabel spoke very highly of her brother, calling him ‘the biggest nerd I know’ with the pride only a sibling could muster. She confided that she was jealous of how smart he was, but that he still needed to learn lots of things, like when to sleep, or shower. Mostly hygiene stuff. Apparently, Dipper had found his third journal in their first month in Gravity Falls, and they’d spent their summer dabbling in the anomalies in the woods. 

Before he knew it, Ford’s watch was beeping, and he was muffling the speakers with a hand. “Okay, Mabel,” he said, standing up. Carefully, because he didn’t want to bump any of the ribs, he picked his way over to her. “Can you walk?”

She hesitated. 

“Don’t try to be a hero,” he told her, picking up on her silence. “If you can’t, that’s okay. I’ll carry you again.”

“That, please.” 

He bent his knees and put her back on his hip, cautiously cracking the door and peering into the hallway. From the direction they’d come, he saw several demons trotting down the hall. Swallowing, he turned the other direction and ran. 

Soon enough, Mabel gasped and lifted her arm. “There!” Ford skidded to a halt, backtracking to head down the hallway she’d indicated. Sure enough, at the end of it, there was simply no wall. It was one of the Fearamid’s odd exits, but Ford wasn’t complaining. He’d navigated the cosmic void of the multiverse before, and he’d do it again.

“If you’re scared of heights, close your eyes,” he told Mabel. She instantly buried her face in the collar of his coat. The action made him readjust his grip, pressing one hand to the back of her head as he took a deep breath, counted to three, and jumped off the edge of the Fearamid. 

They fell, but not too far. To his immense relief, Ford recognized his surroundings. He felt a sudden burst of optimism. If he was here, and Dimension 51C4 was there, then… 

When they crashed into Dimension 52, he was smiling. He loved 52. It was the closest to Earth he’d ever found. And again, in a fantastic stroke of luck, they were exactly where he’d hoped they’d land. 

He shook Mabel gently. “You can look now.”

She lifted her head, blinking and squinting at the twin suns. “Where are we?”

“Dimension 52,” Ford told her, starting to walk down the familiar path through the rocky sand. “We’ll be safe here. I have a friend, she’s not too far, and she’ll take us in.”

“It looks like the Grand Canyon here.”

“That’s part of why I like it so much,” Ford admitted. “Geologically, this dimension is very similar to earth. It’s comforting.”

“Have you ever been?”

“To the Grand Canyon?” Ford clarified, and she nodded. He shook his head. “No, I--I guess I always figured I’d get around to it on a family road trip at some point. That didn’t pan out.”

Mabel frowned at that, then lifted her hands towards the desert. She made two finger guns, then twisted her left hand so that she had a viewfinder with her fingers. Then she said, “Click!”

“What are you doing?”

“Taking the first imaginary photo of our family road trip,” Mabel said as if it should be obvious. “I never miss a scrapbookortunity.”

“Ah.”

He picked his way into the ravine. Gvalnir’s home wasn’t too deep into the canyon, and his pace quickened when he saw the door. He switched Mabel to his other side, reaching forward and knocking sharply on the wooden panel.

It shifted aside, and Mabel inhaled a little sharply. Perhaps he should have warned her that the landscape wasn’t the only similarity with Dimension 52.

“Hello, Amonvin,” Ford said to the child behind the door. “Is your mother home?”

Amonvin blinked at him with wide set eyes, then nodded. “MOOOOM! Your space friend’s here!” 

“Let him in!” Came a female response, and Amonvin backed up, swinging the door open.

“Hi,” Mabel said.

“You look weird,” Amonvin replied.

“That’s it, bedtime for you,” the same female voice said, and Ford smiled when Gvalnir came into view, grabbing her son by the arm and shooing him away. She smiled at Ford, but her face froze a tiny bit when she saw Mabel. “She… she is yours? I didn’t realize it had been so long.”

“No--this is my great-niece,” he said, and Mabel waved. In the same motion, she yawned, and Gvalnir seemed to accept that this was all she needed to know.

“A pleasure to meet you, Little Pines,” she greeted. “Let’s get some food in the both of you.”

 _ >>>>> _ • _ <<<<< _

_2016_

“We could find your friend,” Mabel said suddenly, head snapping up. “52. The one who gave us my stuff. Gvala?”

“Gvalnir,” Ford said. “I would hate to impose, but you’re not wrong. The only issue there is that we might be followed, and that puts her and her family at risk.”

Mabel deflated. “Yeah, I guess. We don’t want that.”

She gave him a glance out of the corner of her eye. He was stroking his chin, frowning at the collidoscope. It was much harder to find a route between dimensions when you weren’t willing to tear your own gaps, as she assumed Ford had done to reach her so quickly in the nightmare realm using his atomic destabilizer. It was illegal in seven-thousand dimensions, and you never knew where you’d end up when you used it, but boy, was it fast. 

“It looks like we can take a path through the seventh ring and around,” he said, musing. “If I can stop at the port in BB-), I can try to get a message through to her. See if it’s safe for us to go.” He glanced at her. “We really don’t have any better ideas?”

Mabel crossed her arms. “I’ve told you about Dipper’s experience with Bill before. They have all three journals, they _have_ to know what they’re risking. But they’re stupid, and they love us, and they’re gonna risk it anyways. I think we should do them the decency of at least trying to prevent Weirdmaggedon.”

 _ >>>>> _ • _ <<<<< _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if i ever have a coherent plotline its bc i did. no i didnt<3 thanks for reading, and see you next time! i'm going to try to get a little more up this week, then i'll figure out a posting routine.


	3. Dipper Versus Local Politics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper finds a creative solution. Dipper's POV.

_October 15/16, 2016, It’s Late as Hell, Who Knows What Day it Is_

Dipper was used to a general air of grogginess in his day-to-day, but for a moment, he really thought he’d died and some kind of reaper had come to take him wherever he was going to end up. It was an ugly reaper, he thought, all backlit by the pulsing, sickly light of the main control console, but then it opened its mouth and spoke. “You’ve been out for ten minutes, kid. Go to bed.”

“Power nap,” Dipper mumbled in protest, but Stan hadn’t budged once in four years, and he wasn’t budging now. 

“Power nap, my ass.” He hauled Dipper out of his chair by his armpits, set him on his feet, and gave him a firm shove towards the door. “It’s a school night.” 

The toe of his sneaker caught on the concrete floor, and Dipper stumbled a couple of times before catching himself on the doorframe and turning to give Stan a reproachful glare. The glare missed its mark; Stan had already turned back to the control panel. He waved a hand in the air dismissively. “I’m wrapping up down here. You? Hit the hay.”

His fingers curled on the frame and his tongue in his mouth, but Dipper was too tired to make a rebuttal. He drummed on the metal before turning and leaving without saying good night. 

The elevator was quiet but shuddery, which was an acceptable occurrence. 

Dipper hit the button for floor two, which was not. 

Stan didn’t liked talking about Great-Uncle Stanford’s study, insisting that it was a shrine to whatever was going wrong inside his brother’s head and that he avoided it whenever possible. To Dipper, who had firsthand knowledge of exactly what had been inside Stanford’s head, it was morbidly fascinating. Dipper had snuck in frequently when he was younger, when he idolized this unknown author who’d been his own flesh and blood all along, when he had nothing at all to cling to. From his encounters with the demon, he knew better than to trust Bill, so to see tangible proof that the most brilliant person he’d ever met (well, not _met,_ per se, but it did feel as if he knew Stanford) had fallen victim to the demon’s schemes was equal parts terrifying and comforting. He’d pored through every piece of writing Great-Uncle Stanford had ever penned about Bill, done his own field-ventures on Stanford’s research. 

The summer after his freshman year of high school, he, his tentative new friend Pacifica, and the freshly-graduated Wendy had followed through with Stanford’s discovery regarding the giant hill in the center of the crater town. But they hadn’t been able to descend very far into the spacecraft, and they’d had to go back up the ladder after a disappointing venture. Since then, Dipper and Pacifica had returned on occasion to get various replacement parts, but as much as the stark reality of extraterrestrial presence on Earth thrilled him, it didn’t _really_ matter, not right now. Not while Mabel was still out there. The aliens were interesting, and maybe he would explore them more when things were different, but the majority of his spare reading was dedicated to Bill. 

The demon had popped into his dreams now and again, but was generally unpleasant and distant now that he knew he wasn’t going to be able to trick Dipper again so easily. Dipper had even gone so far as to give Stan a brief summary of the demon, really only to explain the presence of the triangular paraphernalia that Stanford had plastered everywhere. He didn’t tell Stan everything, though. Some things the old man was better off not knowing. 

Dipper rubbed at one of the faint four-dot scars on the back of his hand as the elevator creaked open to Great-Uncle Stanford’s study. The distress he felt from the portal’s malfunction wasn’t just because it meant that Mabel’s recovery would take longer. Stanford had been adamant that with every opening of the portal, the danger Bill posed to the world grew exponentially. Stan knew that. He and Dipper had pored over the journals in blacklight, saw every scribbled warning. 

In this regard, neither of them particularly cared about the fate of the world, but it was still a credible threat to keep in mind.

He flicked on the lights. The bulbs buzzed with quiet energy as he crossed the room to the desk he’d reclaimed. The oil paintings and other pythagorean memorabilia, Dipper had disposed of, but most everything else in the room he’d tried not to disturb. Great-Uncle Stanford had shelves upon shelves of reading material regarding his interdimensional research, and writing to rival it. He had an entire shelf of binders, which Dipper referenced frequently while working on his own project.

He sat down in the creaky chair, lowering himself quietly just in case Stan was listening from a floor down. Then he reached for the bottom drawer of the desk and pulled out the maroon journal emblazoned with a gold foil pine tree. The tree, he’d done himself, but he’d found three empty homemade journals in a supply closet during one of his first trips down. He’d been too scared to mess with them at first, but after listening to Stan talk about his brother, he couldn’t help but feel as though Stanford would be too mad. So he’d cut a foil tree and pasted it to the front, and after a moment of hesitation, penned a 1 on the metal. He was too wary to keep his journals on him, or even in the habitable part of the shack, so they lived down here in his desk. Over the past spring, he’d finished the first journal, and was currently on the second. 

He wished that he could have filled them with more interesting material, he thought vaguely as he thumbed through the first one, but it really was a diary with complex schematics. In these pages he’d poured his frustrations: with Stan, with the machine, with Soos, with Stan, with Wendy--inexplicably, with Mabel--with Great-Uncle Stanford, with Stan, with Pacifica, with the machine again, and with Stan. There was the occasional allusion to whatever wild anomaly he’d encountered on the way to Greasy’s (or that time the Gremoblin had crashed the high school football game, he’d had a mess of explaining THAT to the principal), but it was obvious from the contents of the journal where his head had been for the majority of his high school career. 

He sighed, picking up his pen, and started writing about tonight. Phrases like _near_ ~~_catsatorphy_~~ _catastrophe on lab floor tonight, partial opening of portal, so close nearly there almost_

“I thought I said hit the hay.”

Dipper jumped, one hand jerking out to cover the page even as he turned to see Stan leaning against the doorway with crossed arms. “I’m going as soon as I wrap this up.”

Stan scoffed. “Like I’ve never heard that one before.”

He crossed over to sit on the edge of the desk. Dipper drew the journal closer to him, half-closed to keep Stan from seeing the page with wet ink. Stan raised an eyebrow. “What, don’t want me to read mean things you wrote about me?”

Dipper waited a half-beat too long before chuckling. “Ha. No, just… frustrated.” 

“I thought you’d be finished with that thing by now,” Stan commented. “It’s been a couple years now.”

Dipper flipped the book over, displaying the 2 on the front. Stan’s expression hardened. “Ah.”

“It’s not documenting anomalies, or anything,” Dipper felt the need to explain. “Just getting it out somewhere helps.”

Stan stared at the number. “Yeah. S’fair, I guess.”

Dipper watched the way Stan’s heel tapped against the bottom drawer, where the first journal sat completed. “You _haven’t_ read these, have you?” He said, suddenly suspicious.

Stan’s hesitation was enough to make Dipper recoil, but Stan was quick to lift his hands. “I swear, I didn’t mean to. I shut it as soon as I realized what it was.”

“What else did you think it was?”

“Anomalies, like Ford’s! I didn’t mean to.”

Dipper wanted to be mad, but Stan seemed sincere. They hadn’t exactly kept secrets from each other since he’d moved to Gravity Falls full time, since Mabel had ‘gone missing’. He was a little hurt that this, his only private output, had been violated, but from the way Stan was talking it sounded like it was from a while ago. So he sighed. “When? What did you see?” 

Stan snorted. “Relax, kid, it’s not like I’m losing sleep over it.”

“No, I want to know.”

He relaxed, leaning back against the bookshelf. “It was pretty early. You were in eighth grade, I think, still weren’t showering or nothing.”

Dipper sat up. If this was going to be an attack on his poor thirteen-year-old hygeine, he didn’t want to hear it.

“Siddown,” Stan grumbled, waving a hand. “I’m just remembering. You were mad because I made you do your homework and work in the shop for an hour after that before I let you come help down in the lab. And I’d told you I wanted you to sign up for a sport. You couldn’t understand how I could be so… nonchalant, I think was the word you used.”

“Oh.”

“I’m serious when I say I’m not mad,” Stan said. “Wasn’t mad then, not mad now.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

Stan hummed thoughtfully, leaning his head against the shelf. “But you know why I did it though, right? Why I made you...” He waved his hands, searching for the words.

“Act like a kid?” Dipper supplied.

“Yeah,” Stan said.

“I know,” Dipper said. “I don’t--I didn’t _like_ it. Still don’t, really. But I get it, now.”

The old man nodded once. “Good.”

Dipper took the silence to tap one finger to the ink on the page, and when his finger came away clean, he shut the journal and put it away. “Tomorrow, I’m going to go find McGucket after school,” he said grimly, voicing a thought he’d been toying with since he’d hit the lever.

Stan got off the desk, eyeing him warily. “You’re sure? Last time you tried to get his help I thought we were gonna have to cart him from the junk yard in a wheelbarrow.”

“I think he’s different now,” Dipper said. “He might agree.”

Stan shrugged. “I don’t think we need him, but if you want to spend your hour breaking the hillbilly again, be my guest.” He reached over and ruffled Dipper’s hair before setting his hand on his shoulder. “C’mon. I’m serious. Bed.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

_Now it’s Officially the 16th, 2016_

It took Pacifica longer than usual to jog out to where the cross country team was waiting to warm up. Dipper watched her open the door of the gym and come over to the team, already apologizing. 

“Snyder held us late because she wouldn’t shut up about her grandkid,” she said in lieu of an apology. “Apparently someone held a phone up to it and it babbled for thirty minutes, and this was groundbreaking news. Let’s go!”

The team, a haphazard group of Gravity Falls’ finest, fell into line as Pacifica took her place at the front. As the only seniors, Dipper and Pacifica had been designated the team captains by default. This, Dipper felt, had been a poor choice, strategy-wise. Pacifica, conversely, seemed to thrive in a leadership position, and had picked up Dipper’s slack with a surprising amount of competence. 

He passed the overambitious freshmen to jog next to Pacifica, ignoring the way her ponytail hit him as he made his way around her. “We got it on last night,” he told her, unable to contain his excitement any longer.

She stumbled, quickly regaining her footing before looking at him fully. “You what?”

Dipper jerked his head forward meaningfully, and Pacifica followed suit. His heart was pounding, and it wasn’t just because he’d only had two and a half fishsticks for lunch. “It was working for a minute, but something went wrong,” he said, making the left turn for the warmup loop. “After practice, I’m going to McGucket to ask for help. He knows more about it than anyone except me and Stan. Want to come?”

Pacifica focused on the sidewalk ahead of them before saying, “Yeah, man, I’m coming.” They both knew she’d rather do anything else than go home before she absolutely had to, even if it meant creepy portal stuff.

By the time they finished the slow mile and wound up back at the track, Coach Cramm was waiting for them. She glanced between them and her clipboards before announcing that it would be a quick practice, interval training with last-man sprints on the track. The rest of the team groaned, but this was good, because it meant they’d be out of there faster. 

Not for the first time, as the team started to run and Dipper zoned out, he understood why Stan had mandated he do normal high school things. This time that he got out in the sun, with kids his age, sharing normal experiences: he needed it. He understood, too, why Stan had developed such a connection to what was otherwise the hoakiest tourist trap in all fifty states. It wasn’t just bringing the money in; it was an escape from the very scary reality in the basement.

He was drawn out of his head by a shove from behind, and Pacifica yelling “Tag!” as she sprinted past him to the front of the line. He shook his head as he watched her fall in, then sped up, relishing the burning in his thighs. 

>>>>> • <<<<<

He squinted out of the windshield of the Diablo as he parked. “I forgot how dark it gets this time of year,” he commented as he turned off the engine. 

“The man is running a presidential campaign,” Pacifica grumbled. “He owns a _mansion._ And he is _still_ headquartered in a junkyard!”

“You’re the one who has to decide whether or not to vote for him,” Dipper crowed. 

Pacifica made a face. She had turned eighteen in September, and had immediately registered to vote. It had been, Dipper knew, the first of many silent legal rebellions his friend had been making in her newfound adulthood. “Better him than the New York cheeto,” she grumbled, getting out of the car. “Ugh, it’s freezing. And it smells like trash. Freezing trash, Dipper!”

“We’ll be quick.”

Pacifica was already approaching the--Dipper had never really known what to call it. Lean-to? Temporary home slash workspace? McSuckit House? Either way, the spraypaint on the walls was covered by a clean-looking grid of McGucket 2016 posters, and when they knocked on the door, it was Tate McGucket who answered, a finger to his lips.

“We’re negotiating debate rules with Chump’s team,” Tate said, jerking his head to where the crazy inventor, Tad Strange, and Shandra Jimenez sat around a telephone on speaker.

McGucket looked up at the motion at the door. “Oh, it’s you and the wealthy girl whose house I done repurposed! Just a minute!”

Tate nodded. “Stay on the line, Dad. Hey, would you two mind trying out this campaign-themed crossword we’re thinking about putting in the paper?”

Dipper glanced at Pacifica, who seemed more wary about sitting down on crates of garbage than the potential quality of the crossword, and they both nodded. Tate handed them clipboards and pens and returned to the table. Dipper looked at the instructions. _1: The best country in the world._

“Look at one, America doesn’t fit here,” he whispered to Pacifica, who was already filling it in. “There’s too many spaces.”

“It’s the Netherlands,” Pacifica whispered back. “They were voted the best place to live in terms of human rights in a poll last month.”

“How do you know that?”

“The news is free, Dipper.”

He scoffed and looked to the evens. _Four: a hasty retreat of an aquatic nature._

“Tate, scrap-doodle isn’t a real word,” Dipper said out loud.

Tate shrugged. “The candidate wishes to familiarize himself to the constituents.”

McGucket and Jiminez said their farewells to whoever was on the other line, and the hillbilly stood up, clapping his hands. Since the last time Dipper had seen him, he’d trimmed his beard, and was even standing a little taller than Dipper had recalled. It was good to see things looking up for him. 

“Now,” McGucket said pleasantly. His voice had not lost any of its twang, but he did seem a little more composed, more like the mechanic in the video (like the F Stanford wrote so fondly of, Dipper forced himself not to dwell on that). “What can I help you kids with?”

“Can, um, can we have the room?” Dipper said uncomfortably, glancing at the others. “It’s, um…”

Tate’s expression hardened. “Wait. It’s about _this?_ Absolutely not.”

Dipper blinked. “Wait, you--”

Tate had a hand in the air. “I don’t know _what_ you said to him the last time, but he was a mess, and it took forever for him to get back on track with the shelter, and the stakes are even higher now. My father’s in the middle of a viable presidential campaign, I’m not letting you send him into another spiral--”

“Please, we need his help and we’re so close,” Dipper said, unable to stop himself.

“I said what I said, kid. You need to leave.”  
“No.” 

Everyone turned to look at McGucket, who was frowning quite severely at Dipper.

“Dad?”

“Tate, I appreciate your concern, but I do reckon my constitution is more fortitudinous than it were before. I--I’ll hear what he has to say. Y’all go on in the back, now.”

‘The back’ was outside, but Strange, Jiminez, and the younger McGucket all obliged. 

McGucket sat back down at the table and gestured for the two to join him. “She knows?” He asked, glancing at Pacifica. 

“Most of it.” He would pay for that later, judging by Pacifica’s sharp glance, but it was the truth. Dipper had told her that McGucket hadn’t always been crazy, but she knew very little about the hillbilly turned politician, much less than Dipper did.

“Hmph.” McGucket sat back, frowning. “You’re what, twenty, now?”

“Um. Seventeen,” Dipper said. “What--why?”

The old man shook his head to clear it. “Nothing. You just look the spittin’ image of your uncle when he was younger, is all.”

Dipper blinked. Stan had alluded as much, but seeing how his great-uncle had turned out, he wasn’t entirely sure if it was a compliment. Seeing the old photos Stan had of him and Stanford, though, he supposed he could take it. “I… Mr. McGucket, I think you know that… this is about that.” 

“I figured as much,” he agreed, sitting forward. “You said you’re close.”

“We turned it on last night,” Dipper said slowly, gauging the inventor’s response. “And it nearly worked, but the sigils went red, not colorful like they should. I turned it off before anything could break, but we still want to run tests, make sure it’s stable before we try to do it for real, and we--I, I was wondering if you’d be willing to help.”

McGucket’s face was unreadable. Real nerves were bubbling in Dipper’s gut. “I know this is a long shot, and I understand if you don’t want anything to do with this project ever again, but I just… we’ve almost got her back, sir, and I don’t know where else to go.”

McGucket had an unusually serious look in his eyes. He hmmed thoughtfully, then glanced at Pacifica, who had maintained a neutral expression for the entirety of what had to be a _very_ confusing conversation.

“I still don’t care much for that room,” he said slowly. “But I… the last time you came to me for this, I was still-- well, I was still thirteen percent feral, accordin’ to my therapist. The proposition of returnin’ to the site of the most concentrated trauma I’ve ever experienced, it did tickle my amygdala in a most frightenin’ manner!”

Dipper glanced at Pacifica.

“I know that my fear in that meetin’ was real,” McGucket continued. “And valid. But my response could have been more civil. You and your sister are the only reason I remember Stanford and the project, after all.” 

He nodded, determined now. “Red indicates a coding malfunction. I’ll come run the more complex diagnostic checks, and we’ll get it up and runnin’. Do, uh, as a father myself, I hope you don’t mind me askin’... do your parents know? About any of this?”

Dipper winced. McGucket seemed to know to back off. “Just the photo on the milk carton for them, then?”

“It’s better this way,” he said, dropping his eyes to the table top. “They’d never have let me stay if they thought anything, um, more permanent had happened.”

McGucket was quiet. “I’ll come with you now,” he decided. “The workday’s over soon enough, anyhow. Let me go tell Tate, and get my experimentin’ goggles, and then we can go.”

He got up and crossed the room, shutting the exterior door behind him. Dipper glanced at Pacifica as she turned to him, eyes wide. “What,” she mouthed.

“I’ll tell you once it’s over,” he told her.

The drive back to the Shack was made interesting by McGucket’s refusal to believe that a teenager knew how to operate a manual-transmission vehicle. Pacifica pointed out that if he continued to spread ageist vitriol, he would alienate himself from young voters. This seemed to really amuse him for some reason, and he hamboned in the backseat to express the comedy he found in the situation.

Stan was waiting on the porch with a Pitt when Dipper pulled up in front of the Shack. “About time,” he called in a grumble, eyes narrowing when he saw the full envoy Dipper had brought.

“I need them all here,” Dipper said before Stan could say anything. 

“Yeah, well, she’s not coming,” he said, jerking his chin at Pacifica, who huffed in protest. “I still don’t like that she even knows. Gift shop needs sweeping.”

“And I need overtime pay, but neither of us get what we want,” she replied instantly. “Besides, we both know Soos did it already.”

Stan opened his mouth and shut it again. Shot a glare at Dipper, who busied himself with locking up the car. “Fine. Do whatever, but you’re not coming down, and that’s final.” He gave her one of those stern old-man looks, the kind that exists solely to emphasize the ‘that’s final’ he’d just issued,before looking to McGucket. “McGucket. Thanks for coming.”

“Stanley Pines, good to see you!” McGucket said brightly. “I do wish it were under differenter circumstances, but I’m happy to help. Your boy says you’re getting close, and I can’t say a part of me isn’t anticipatin’ seeing Stanford and your funny girl again.”

Stan grunted in agreement, holding the door open to usher them all inside through the gift shop. Dipper hurried through first, anxious to get started, but stopped with his fingers hovering just over the keys of the vending machine. He turned to glance at Pacifica. “You know where everything is,” he said, apology creeping into his tone.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, in that voice of hers that meant she was pretending to be bored. “If you guys are down there a long time, though, I’m not staying up here by myself forever.”

“You can always make yourself useful,” Stan grumbled, pushing past Dipper to punch in the code himself. Pacifica made a face behind his back. “There’s pizza in the fridge.”

That did seem to mollify her--the slight quirk of her eyebrow might as well have been a grin--so Dipper felt less guilty about dragging her out here only to sit upstairs alone. He ushered McGucket through and shut the machine behind him. Stan and McGucket were further down the stairs, already discussing various potential issues with the portal, and Dipper quickened his pace, bouncing down the steps two at a time to catch the tails of the conversation.

“--don’t know what I screwed up this time,” Stan was saying, punching the button for the elevator. McGucket was glancing around, and Dipper didn’t miss the way his fingers twitched as if grabbing for a beard that wasn’t there anymore. “But it went all red.”

“As I was telling the boy,” McGucket said, “Coding error. I’ll go through the what you’ve got, and see what you need.”

“Coding error,” Stan snorted, shaking his head as they boarded the elevator. “How come neither of you wrote down color codes anywhere?” 

“I reckon it must have seemed frivolitious to us,” McGucket mused. “Red meant coding, orange meant mechanical, yellow meant fluid leakage, purple was miscellaneous, and the multi-color indicated complete operationality!”

“Smart,” Stan said.

“Miscellaneous?” Dipper echoed.

The elevator let them out in the lab. Stan pushed through first, going straight on to the floor, but Dipper hung back. He felt responsible for McGucket’s breakdown four years ago, though he was glad to hear that the old man had gone to therapy after all, but he would still rather avoid another one if possible. “You alright?”

“Right as rain,” McGucket responded promptly. “I daresay I’m just feeling a little deja-vu, is all.”

His eyes drifted over the obsolete computers--computers that Dipper and Stan knew how to use from a purely practical standpoint, but that McGucket had _made._ “I worked here with your uncle for upwards of two years,” he said conversationally.

“I know,” Dipper replied.

“I--oh, you would, wouldn’t you?” McGucket pressed forward. “Right. Well. I think I’d better look over the body of the machine, just to make sure y’all didn’t accidentally misconnect the warnin’ sensors and we’ve got a nuclear leak on our hands, and then we’ll pop into the coding.”

Ignoring the implications of a nuclear leak, Dipper nodded. “Sounds good.”

He followed McGucket onto the floor, meeting Stan’s tense stare with a calm raise of his eyebrows. The machine was off. Dipper was allowed on the floor when the machine was off. Seeming to remember this, Stan turned to McGucket. He opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it, and spread his arms invitingly at the machine before lowering them awkwardly and coming to stand beside Dipper as the inventor looked over his most terrible creation yet.

“You sure he’s got his screws tight up in there?” Stan muttered.

“He seems okay for now,” Dipper whispered back. 

“Why didn’t you bring Pacifica home?”

“She said she wanted to come.” 

“You know I don’t mind her being here, but this isn’t a good time.”

“She just said she’d rather be here than at home,” Dipper said, watching McGucket engage the ladder and scramble up the side of the machine like a madman. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Stan set his jaw. They’d exchanged their suspicions about Pacifica’s home life, and though neither of them had ever brought it up with her or asked for clarification, it was an unspoken rule in the Shack that she was allowed in whenever she wanted, no questions asked. Once, Dipper had asked why Stan was so sympathetic to the former rich kid, and he had gone all gruff and said something about knowing what it was to be unwelcome at home, and didn’t Dipper have someone else to go bother?

“How was school?”

“Fine,” Dipper said. “I’ve got a calc test on Friday, and a report due in political science on Thursday.”

“Practice go okay?”

“Yeah, it was just interval sprinting. Coach is going easy on us because we’ve got the race tomorrow night.”

Stan nodded. “Good. You think you’re gonna PR?”

“Eh, maybe,” Dipper said halfheartedly. “I think I peaked last season.”

“Ha! Probably.”

Dipper gave him a good-natured punch on the arm. 

McGucket came back down the ladder, shrugging as he rolled his sleeves back down and lifted his science goggles up his head. “Well, you’ve done it all correctly. That thing’s as whole and complete as it was the day I got sucked halfway through and saw unnamable horrors waiting just beyond, ready at a moment’s notice to pounce on anything weaker than they were ha HA!”

Dipper flinched violently, and he saw Stan’s jaw clench.

“But I’m sure your family’s fine,” McGucket added hastily. 

“Red light means coding?” Stan prompted.

McGucket nodded. “I’ll need to look through everything. Your programming, your coordinates, all of it. As well as the calibration on the computers.”

“I haven’t touched any of that, though, that’s all yours and Ford’s,” Stan said. 

McGucket spread his hands. “Maybe the waves of energy altered the data! Who knows. Anything can happen in this place.”

That was a valid statement. Stan shooed Dipper upstairs, arguing that if anything happened, he’d come get him himself, but there was really nothing more for him to do. _Go get your homework done and get some dinner in you, I swear, you get scrawnier every week._

Dipper relented, and went back up to the shop, pushing through the _employee’s only_ door with no hesitation. “Pacifica?” He called.

“In the kitchen,” came her reply. He found her there, the box of pizza open, munching on a cold slice as she flipped through her political science textbook. She kicked the empty seat next to her by means of invitation. 

“Tulsey’s project on wealth disparity?” Dipper said sympathetically. They were in the same class, just different periods.

“Ugh, yeah,” she said. “It’s too easy. Kids are going to think everything is as black and white as ever, and I’m going to have to sit through an hour of a bunch of kids yelling eat the rich and glaring at me. Like it’s my fault.”

“They shouldn’t still be giving you a hard time for that,” Dipper said, taking a slice of cold pizza. 

“I mean, I know I was the worst,” she said, propping her elbows on either side of the book and frowning down at it over smushed cheeks. “But I’m better now. Right?”

“Totally,” Dipper said, and he wouldn’t have if he didn’t mean it. 

“Yeah,” she said. Then, “My dad liquified my college fund.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” she said, face stony. “I’m not mad for--god, I sound so selfish complaining about this stuff. But he took it out and avoided all of the taxes, and he and Mom are starting a pyramid scheme in Kolkata now and I don’t think they’re coming back.”

 _“What?”_ Dipper said again, louder. “You’ve-- when?!”

She took the last bite of pizza. “They left the night before my birthday.”

“Pacifica!”

“What?” She snapped, glaring at him, before immediately sighing and looking back down at the book. “Sorry.”

“Sorry--why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“It’s only been a month, Dipper, I think this is soon enough.”

“Were you going to?”

Pacifica crossed her arms, and her hesitation made Dipper angrier. “What about your house? Can you make rent with what you make here?”

She shook her head. “I got the first eviction notice yesterday morning.”

“Eviction-- what about food? Utilities, gas in your car?”

Pacifica shook her head again. “I take the bus. And you’re nice, you drive me a lot.”

“Food, Pacifica,” he repeated. She shrugged.

“I--were you going to say anything to McGucket? I’m sure he’s got more room at his shelter.”

Let alone the blow to her pride that that would be, to move back into her childhood home as a charity case. Not surprisingly, Pacifica flinched. “I mean, yeah. There’s that.”

Dipper was reeling. Why hadn’t she said anything sooner? He was reminded, violently, of one of their first interactions, during his first summer in Gravity Falls. What had she said? I’m not supposed to take handouts. He felt pity, that she didn’t know how to ask for help. Real anger at her parents for screwing up the one thing that they’d managed to save for her. Guilt that he hadn’t noticed.

He put one hand on his forehead, leaning on the table. Joining it with his other hand, he ran his fingers through his hair before drumming them on the tabletop. “Actually, don’t.”

“Don’t?” Pacifica echoed.

Dipper crossed his arms. “I happen to have firsthand experience with eviction. Remember that summer when Gideon tried to steal the Shack from Stan?”

Pacifica nodded warily.

“Well, it sucked. We had to stay with Soos and his grandmother. Not that they weren’t nice. We love the Ramirezes. They care about us, and we care about them, but it was just embarrassing for us. Not them, though, to them it was just as easy as opening their house to a friend.”

Pacifica was still not saying anything, but he thought he saw recognition, and he pretended not to notice that she was definitely about to cry. “You should stay here,” he said. “There are plenty of spare rooms, we can fix one up for you.”

“Are you sure?” She said. “I think Stan kind of hates me.” 

“What? Are you kidding? You’re the best employee he’s ever had. Everyone wants to buy when you’re at the register. Besides, he really does like you. Me and Mabel were never cutthroat enough to impress him.”

Pacifica snorted wetly. “Thanks, Dipper.”

“Yeah.”

There was a silence that stretched a beat too long where they just kind of looked at each other. He was glad she’d stopped wearing makeup sophomore year, he thought vaguely, because she was much prettier without it. 

Wait, what?

“Um, do you have your project mostly done?” He asked. “Because I barely even have a thesis on mine.” Yes. Distractions. Those were always good.

“I, um, yeah,” Pacifica articulated. “I wrote about the correlation between time spent as a billionaire and the decline of spontaneous benevolence.”

“Oh. That’s a lot smarter than mine.”

“What is it?” She said, teasing.

“No, I don’t want to say it now.” 

“Oh, come _on.”_

He sighed. “Dolly Parton.”

“You did not just say Dolly Parton.”

“She gives away so much money, it’s the only reason she’s not a billionaire!”

“Oh my _God!”_

 _ >>>>> _ • _ <<<<< _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dipper-centric chapter here! Don’t worry, you’ll learn how he and Pacifica became friends in due time :) I’m gonna give a hesitant update schedule of every Sunday, but don’t be surprised if I update early. Gotta get that instant gratification. Thanks for reading, wear a mask! Love you!


	4. In Which Ford and Mabel Go for a Long Walk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford is a good dad. Mixed POV.

_ July 30, 2012 _

“Gvalnir, I don’t know the first thing about raising a child,” Ford said in a helpless way, letting his face fall into his hands. He didn’t want to be too loud, because the child in question was conked out on an armchair in Gvalnir’s living room, not quite out of earshot. “I—it’s been nearly forty years since I’ve even seen one, let alone been  _ responsible _ for it.”

“And it’s a female,” Gvalnir supplied helpfully, setting a mug down in front of him, the heavy ceramic thunking on the table. She’d made a hearty stew, luckily enough to feed two extra travellers, but the children were all gone now, and they’d barely begun talking. The hominid sat, casting a thoughtful glance at the hallway off of which her children slept. “Which will present its own set of challenges in the coming moons.”

Ford lifted his head in confusion—Gvalnir’s culture was matriarchal at its heart; blatant misogyny was unheard of—then groaned, dropping his forehead back to his palms and carding his hands through his hair when he realized what she was talking about. “I hadn’t even considered that. Is it too hopeful to think that she might know what to—what she needs?”

“Yes,” Gvalnir said firmly. “Stanford Pines, listen to me. That—“ and she pointed at Mabel’s sleeping form for emphasis “—is a child. We can only hope that her entire life has been spent under the protection of adults, and she doesn’t know what she’s been shielded from. You are the only thing standing between her and a cruel death from any of the threats in this multiverse. Unfortunately, that presence means you must also be ready for the mundane.”

Gvalnir sat back in her seat, suddenly suspicious. “Unless you brought her here to dispose of her?”

His fingers tightened in his hair, and his heart dropped clean to his feet. “Dispose—what, you think I’d _ kill—?” _

“No!” Gvalnir corrected hastily, “But to leave her here.”

Ford let his hands slide back to the tabletop, shaking his head vehemently. “No! I… no.” 

Gvalnir seemed pleased by his response. Somewhat smug, she said, “So she’s yours now. You’re fond of learning, this crash course won’t be too difficult for you.” She spread her hands on the table, definitive. 

Ford drummed his fingers on the wood. “Is homo denisova’s physiology and psychology similar enough to homo sapiens?”

Gvalnir pondered this. “I have no way of knowing,” she admitted. “But I assume that at our core, we are the same. Feel free to question me if there’s something that sounds wildly incorrect.”

Ford wanted to agree, wished he could confidently tell Gvalnir to begin whatever this lecture was going to be, but he couldn’t find the words to encourage her to start. His friend sighed sympathetically.

“Everything is different now,” Gvalnir said, “For both of you. But you’re the adult, and she needs someone who has answers to her questions. One of the greatest bitternesses of parenthood is realizing that too many times, you will not have the answer. But that doesn’t mean you don’t try.”

Ford grimaced, wrapping his hands around the mug. “I…” 

He cast a long glance on the sleeping girl. With her ridiculously long hair, slight frame, and the thick, ribbed blanket Gvalnir had laid over her, she looked incredibly, frightfully small. His gaze caught on her ankle, propped up on the arm of the chair, and he saw the way she winced when she moved in her sleep and tweaked it. He was suddenly swept up in the illogical impulse to go invent a device to transfer pain between individuals, and he knew that Gvalnir was right. 

“How old is she?” Gvalnir asked gently. 

“She’s twelve,” he heard himself say. He turned back to her. “Tell me what I need to know.

They talked late into the night. Gvalnir explained the emotional rationale of a teenager, tools he could use, things that Mabel would need that she wouldn’t think of until they were absolutely crucial. His head was positively spinning with the massive amount of information and a strange annoyance that he’d never considered any of these problems before. After a small epiphany, Gvalnir darted away and returned several minutes later with a gift—a small tote bag, filled with things Mabel would need as she grew. A sock filled with rice that could be heated next to a fire (Ford imagined that he’d be using that one as much as Mabel would), a small black sleeve that Gvalnir explained held a silicone menstrual cup, and an assortment of garments that Gvalnir’s daughters had grown out of. Under normal circumstances, such a gift would have made Ford panic, but right now, all he could feel was gratitude that he wouldn’t be flying into this entirely blind. There would be some uncomfortable conversations with Mabel in the future, to be sure, but at least he wouldn’t be  _ hopelessly _ unprepared. 

He went to sleep on the sofa. Over the last three decades, he’d learned how to read a room, which way to lay down so if a threat emerged in the night he could jump to attention. Sleeping in a safe environment like this was a rare luxury, even if he still couldn’t bring himself to relax entirely. Now, though, he laid down, looked at the door, then back at Mabel. He would have to include her in his safety calculations from now on, too. 

_ What else will I need to change? _ he wondered, settling in and tucking his cracked glasses into his breast pocket. He supposed he’d no longer be able to camp in Ford-sized caves and crevices, not unless there was a Mabel-sized spot nearby. And what of the days he decided not to sleep at all, just kept moving overnight? He couldn’t subject a child to that!

When he did finally fall asleep, it was against his better judgement. 

>>>>> • <<<<<

In the morning, he was woken up by a small grunt from across the room. 

A normally conditioned human might have sat up, rubbed at their eyes, and inquired as to what had disturbed their slumber.

Ford Pines did not have the fortune of being a well-adjusted individual, and therefore woke like a rabid animal, shooting straight upright and pulling aside his coat to wrap his fingers around the handle of his gun.

“Whoa, someone’s jumpy!”

He blinked. Squinted. Took his glasses out of his pocket and blinked again.

Mabel was standing next to the armchair, knotted blanket draped over her shoulders like a cape, leaning against the chair for balance. Ford released the handle of his pistol, feeling guilty. “Oh. Good morning, Mabel.”

“Morning,” she said. “So, I didn’t want to ask last night, ‘cause staring is rude, but what’s the deal with your friend?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re forgiven,” she said evenly, not skipping a beat. “Why’s she so… almost human but not quite?”

Ford ran his tongue over his teeth, grimacing against the taste of sleep, before saying, “Gvalnir and her family are homo denisova,” and stretching. 

“I don’t think that’s a very nice thing to say.”

“What? They’re humans, just an earlier version. In this dimension, homo denisova are the dominant species, not homo sapiens”

“Ohhh. Like Neandrethals?”

“Yes, exactly. They were prevalent at the same time, actually.” He yawned, reaching under his glasses to rub at his eyes, then frowned, correcting himself. “Are prevalent. I believe that Neandrethals in this dimension tend to stay in the more populated cities.”

Mabel nodded, pursing her lips and glancing around. He suspected she had stopped listening at “exactly”, as her next question had absolutely nothing to do with human evolutionary subspecies. “How’d you meet the lady one? Are you guys dating?” She gasped. “Is this your family? I thought you said you didn’t have one!”

Ford raised an eyebrow. His initial suspicions that Mabel’s normal volume was loud would be correct, it seemed. “We’re not dating,” he said, and the girl deflated. “Her husband was caught up in some unfortunate circumstances some years back, and I was able to assist her in rescuing him.”

“Ooh, like a spy team!”

He snorted. “Sure. Yes. A spy team.”

“Anyway, they all left a little while ago,” Mabel said, hoisting herself up to sit on the arm of the chair. “Said she had to go to work, and the kids all got on a giant yak to go to school.” Her face turned deadly serious. “I admire them so much. I wish I could ride a yak to school. Your friend said to get food and let ourselves out, but I wanted to wait for you.”

“Oh,” Ford said. He was sorry to have missed Gvalnir. “That was kind of her. And you, for waiting.”

“I said I wanted to wait,” Mabel repeated, emphasis on ‘wanted’. “I figured you’d be the only other person ever to understand this, but falling through whatever I fell through made me  _ really  _ hungry.”

That got a laugh out of him. “It does take a massive amount of energy. I don’t blame you.”

“Don’t worry, though, I can eat more,” she assured him, hopping back to her feet and limping over to the table.

“We need to get you a crutch of some kind,” Ford mused aloud, following her and sitting as she reached into a basket on the head of the table and handed him a large pastry. 

“Did Gvalnir make these?” He asked, inspecting it.

“Yeah,” Mabel said, taking one and biting into it. “It’s all eggs and stuff inside. Personally,  _ I  _ like a little more sugar in my breakfast, but I guess I’m a beggar now, so I can’t be choosy.”

“You’re not a beggar.”

Mabel swallowed her food. “I slept on a stranger’s couch.”

Ford frowned for a moment. “She’s not a stranger to  _ me _ .”

Mabel winced sympathetically, sucking her teeth. “You might be my great uncle, but I don’t think you qualify as not-stranger  _ quite _ yet.”

He blinked. “That’s… valid.”

Ford bit into the pastry. It was indeed some kind of egg-based filling, likely mixed with local edible flora. As he ate, he took the opportunity to get a good look at his new niece, get an idea of how she carried herself when she wasn’t fresh out of a dreambubble and scared for her life.

She was short, but she was twelve, so he supposed that that would do for the time being. Based on how long he’d been able to carry her yesterday, he doubted she even weighed a hundred pounds. She had ruddy cheeks (like her grandfather, Ford realized with a fond jolt) and big brown eyes, and she spoke with the brightness of someone who had yet to learn how fruitless it was to waste your energy attempting to illuminate the void that was Earth. 

A part of him was bitter. At the unfairness of her new station in life, at the fact that he was going to have to be the one to rip the band-aid off and toughen her up far too soon, at Stan for not leaving well enough alone.

The rest of him was itching to hear her thoughts on just about everything good that the multiverse had to offer.

Mabel, for her part, seemed to be doing her own fair share of sizing up. “You know,” she said, eyeing him as she took another bite, “For someone who’s been alone in this place for as long as you, you seem kind of normal.”

Ford laughed. Out loud. A real belly laugh. At Mabel’s confused expression, he wanted to explain, but then there were genuine tears in his eyes and he was bracing his hand on the edge of the table to keep from falling out of his seat because  _ seriously?  _ Normal?  _ Him _ ?

He expressed his disbelief to Mabel, who cocked her head. “I mean, yeah,” she said. “You can hold a conversation and everything. You’re a little skittish, maybe, but you’ve been avoiding Bill all this time, so that makes sense. I’d be skittish too if I was watching over my shoulder for that guy as long as you have.”

His amusement died out at the idea that Mabel thought Bill was the only dangerous thing out here. He coughed to clear his throat and explained, “I don’t mean to laugh at you, I just—“ he wiggled his fingers. “I don’t think anyone has ever made that particular snap judgement about me.”

Mabel looked at his hand, then at his face. She shrugged, a big, braces-filled grin splitting her face. “Guess I’m full of surprises!”

The braces did alarm him. “Oh, we’ll need to get those out,” he said, polishing off the pastry.

“My metal mouth?” Mabel asked, touching her face. “Maybe in the city your friend mentioned?”

Ford shook his head. They should gather their things now. “No, we’ll need to go to a more advanced dimension,” he said. “It’s a shame, though, you don’t get too many hominids out here. Get—oh, you don’t have any stuff,” he realized out loud. “Well. Just sit tight for a minute, I’m going to write her a note, and then we’ll get going, hmm?”

_ >>>>> _ • _ <<<<< _

_ October 16, 2016 _

Mabel felt the strangest sense of disquiet as they packed up their campsite and jumped to the adjacent dimension 28-33. They’d have to walk most of the day through 28-33, but from there, they’d take a back route through AN997, arrive at the place that the once-daily breach to BB-) occurred, and camp for the night. Both Pineses were bracing themselves for the unpleasant journey they knew awaited them in AN997, but it was the quickest way through, and Mabel had insisted. She’d  _ insisted _ . Ford had suggested they skip to the eighth ring, to avoid AN997 and its population of bipedal, meat-hungry insectoids altogether, but that kind of reroute would add nearly three days to the journey, and they didn’t have that kind of time. She’d almost expected Ford to veto AN997 entirely, but he was clearly just as worried as she was, because here they were, marching towards the AN997 breach like they hadn’t nearly been eaten the last time they’d been there together. Then, Mabel had had a brief spell in AN997  _ by herself,  _ during the horrible period she and Ford had been separated, and she really thought that she was going to die, if not from the raw tranquilizing amounts of adrenaline coursing through her veins then from the triad of lacerations across her left bicep that she’d had to disinfect and stitch up herself. 

She did not care for AN997.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Ford asked for the umpteenth time, holding aside a branch and letting Mabel pass him as they trudged through a mercifully flat wood. “I know how unpleasant our last experience was there.”

That was another thing about her solo trip through AN997: she had refrained from mentioning it to Ford. She hadn’t wanted to worry him further, and what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She knew he’d seen her scars, but he had had the decency not to ask, and she had never volunteered the information willingly.

“Oh, come on, don’t worry about me,” Mabel scoffed. “It’ll be a quick trip through, and we’ll be fine.” She didn’t glance back at him. Better to steel herself, get it over with, and explain her anxieties once they were safely beyond. 

Of course, the uncertainty surrounding this trip only served to heighten her nerves. Dipper and Stan were messing with something much bigger than them. The entire world could be brought to its knees because of their carelessness. She wanted to be angry at them, for putting the world at risk. She  _ should  _ be angry at them. It was the only logical reaction.

But instead, she was excited. Grateful, even. And she couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for it.

Ford was mad about it, she knew that, she could tell without even looking at him. But his perspective was different. Mabel couldn’t imagine how horribly responsible for all of this he must feel, how harshly he would blame himself if Bill got so much as a glance into their dimension. He had built the doorway, after all. He had reason to be angry. 

She was being selfish, Mabel told herself sternly, checking her screen and adjusting their path slightly. The relief she was feeling at the idea of going home was juvenile. Who did she think she was, that she should be ready to risk the safety of the entire planet to go home? 

Mabel’s nose wrinkled as she walked into a cobweb, and the hike was momentarily paused as she spluttered and made sure there wasn’t a spider anywhere on her. Ford watched in amusement. “Should I go first again?”

“Ugh. Yes. Ugh.” She shuddered, brushing at her shoulders to dislodge any phantom spiders, and fell in line behind him, slowing her steps down so she wasn’t right on his heels. She knew he preferred bringing up the rear, in case anything attacked from behind, but something had changed in the last year. Now, she took every available chance to follow. It was small, but it gave Ford room to set an easier pace. He wasn’t decrepit by any means, but Mabel didn’t see any reason to wear him out hiking. Besides, Ford might be loath to admit it, but her senses were generally sharper, between the two of them. 

The momentary distraction of the spiderweb faded, and she was now left to stare curiously at Ford’s back as they continued through this particular patch of 28-33. Not for the first time, she wondered how much of his anger surrounding Stan and the portal was actually because of guilt. She knew that when  _ she  _ felt guilty about something she’d done wrong, she tended to get spiky and accusatory and generally unpleasant to be around. The first and only time she ever cheated on a test, she’d yelled at Dipper for chewing too loud at lunch, then ran to the library and hid in the last place anyone would ever look for her: the nonfiction section. 

Mabel had tried exactly twice to talk about Ford’s masterfully repressed feelings about missing Earth. The first time had been two weeks after she’d come through the portal, when she’d woken him up crying about wanting to go home. She hadn’t meant to cry, but a cathartic sobbing session is hardly something you can schedule, and she hadn’t even turned thirteen yet, so no one could blame her. She couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said verbatim, but there was a general demand: to know why he didn’t care, why he didn’t want to go home, if he even missed Earth at all. He had glared and huffed and snapped that it didn’t matter what anyone wanted, this was where they were, and this was where they were going to stay. At the time, all she had seen was an angry adult who wanted her to grit her teeth and grow up. Upon recent evaluation of the memory, she’d concluded that it was quite likely that Ford hadn’t been mad at  _ her  _ at all. 

The second time had been when she was fifteen. They’d visited a highly advanced dimension, one of the more populated port cities, and they met a group of humans from a dimension directly next to where 46’/ sat, locked to the multiverse. The humans were friendly, sympathetic, and they offered to take Ford and Mabel back to their Earth. Mabel had desperately wanted to go, but Ford had given a polite but firm no, and they’d parted ways. Mabel had been furious.  _ That was the closest thing to home we’re ever going to see again, and now our ride there is gone,  _ she’d shouted.

_ You think I haven’t tried that already?  _ Ford had snapped back.  _ How heartless do you think I am? Of course I miss home, Mabel, but I’d rather be out here knowing myself than on some off-white wannabe version of Earth living a lie! _

That time, he really had been mad at her, she thought. Disappointed, even. She’d always thought that that was a dumb thing that parents said. It was one of her mom’s favorite phrases.  _ I’m not mad, sweetie, just disappointed.  _ But hearing that because you lied about doing the dishes was different than hearing it because of your innate human instinct to return to the familiar. 

They’d still been fighting when the dimensional overlap had happened. Mabel didn’t want to open old wounds, but she suspected it was only a matter of time before she and Ford had another difficult conversation about home. 

She also supposed that it was too wishful to consider the possibility that they might be  _ at  _ home to have that talk.

Ford glanced over his shoulder, and Mabel met his gaze evenly. “What’s up?”

He shifted the pack on his shoulders. “I’m curious,” he admitted. Like that was anything new. “Did Bill say anything else to you while you were in his dimension?”

Mabel scrunched up her face and shook her head. “Nah. I was only there for like, twenty minutes, anyway. And I was alone for half of that.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah. It was just… dark.” Now that she said it out loud, it sounded even stranger than it had felt in person. “Like everyone was on a lunch break. When Bill  _ did  _ come talk to me, he was surprised that I was there. So unless this is all some elaborate scheme, and he’s not just tricking us, it really was Stan and Dipper.”

He turned back to face forward, but she could see him lift a pensive hand to his chin. “There’s not a line Bill wouldn’t cross, but I’m inclined to agree. We’re of no use to him out here. There’s one thing that gives me pause, though.” 

“What?”

Ford stepped over a log. Mabel hopped on top of it and balanced for a second before jumping down on the other side. He glanced at her with an amused shake of his head before saying, “Why would he tell you? It’s somewhat counterintuitive to sneaking into our dimension without obstacles, telling you he’s got an in.”

Mabel considered this. “I mean, he  _ is  _ a bit of a narcissist,” she reasoned. “Maybe he thinks we’re not a threat. Oh, or maybe he  _ wants  _ you to see it so he can see you suffer! He did mention how much he likes that.”

“I’m touched.”

Mabel snorted. “Yeah, yeah. Nice to see he still cares.” They trod in silence for a couple of minutes before Mabel asked, “Did you ever figure out why he told you about me?”

Ford tilted his head to one side. “Not definitively. I came up with a few hypotheses, but… no, no real answer.”

“What was your best guess?”

He shrugged. “You said as much. He enjoys seeing me suffer. It’s likely that he assumed you would prove a burden, and that I would resent you, but the joke’s on him if that was his plan.” He grinned over his shoulder briefly before facing forwards again. Mabel smiled at the path, watching her feet. Big softy. 

They fell back into comfortable chatter, moving through the woods at an even pace. Back home, Mabel had been used to adults thinly tolerating the constant stream of words she put out. Stan had a tendency to let her ramble longer than Mom or Dad, but once or twice, she’d caught him turning down his hearing aid. Even Dipper had had to ask her for  _ please, just ten minutes of quiet _ every now and again. When she’d first met Ford, she’d had the sense to hold her tongue, because he might have looked like her Stan (if, you know, Stan hadn’t entirely given up twenty years prior), but let’s be real, she knew nothing about this guy. Well, nothing other than the fact that he knew the triangle who’d tried to kill Dipper, and that he carried a very large stick. Very quickly, though, she’d learned that the talkative gene  _ was  _ multigenerational after all: Ford had a lot to say, and as long as she listened to him while he was talking, he extended her the same courtesy. It was extremely refreshing to know that even if he thought she was silly at times, he did his best to hear what she was saying. 

In the middle of a speech on the social habits of cloven herd animals in this dimension, Ford broke off on a tangent to quiz Mabel about different defensive tactics against horned prey creatures (“The sentiment that they’re more afraid of you than you are of them doesn’t serve anyone very well when they’re charging you at thirty-five miles per hour”) and the proper diversions to create. From there, Mabel reminded him of the time in that desert, in dimension X2^f, when the camels had turned on the caravan mid-trip, and Ford was off, talking about the first time he’d had to ride a—well, he couldn’t call it a  _ horse _ , per se, but he’d been twenty-nine, barely in the multiverse for a year—

The suns were low on the horizon by the time they reached the jump to AN997. Ford peered through. “It’s night already,” he reported, though they both knew that that would be the case. He extended his hand to Mabel. “Shall we?”

Mabel took it, giving him a reassuring squeeze. She would be fine, she reminded herself, she’d be  _ fine. _ This wasn’t going to be like either time before. No one was going to get chased through the jungle by carnivorous bug people, and she refused to even consider the possibility of a second encounter with her little friend.

Ford led the way through the breach, one hand on his pistol and head swiveling even as he waited on the other side for Mabel to step over the lip. When she was through, she squeezed his hand again. He nodded without looking at her, and for a moment, they both just listened. In a friendly dimension like 0!5, Mabel could deploy the tried-and-true Scream And Wait to see if there was anyone in the immediate vicinity, but in AN997, ripe with predators, neither of the Pineses dared to make a sound. 

Mabel let go of Ford’s hand and pulled her collidoscope out, giving it a firm whack on the side and wiping the quickly gathering humidity off of its screen. There were hers and Ford’s trackers, blinking in tandem, and a thin blue line connected their dots to a white triangle one hour away. She held the screen out to Ford, who glanced over it, nodded again, and gestured for her to lead the way. 

The jungle around them was thick, smothering Mabel with the overwhelming scents of soil and petrichor and decaying plant life all at once. Her boots stuck in the muddy floor with every step, and before long, her socks were soaked through with sweat. It could be worse, though, she reminded herself. It could be cold. A cold jungle was one of life’s true torments. 

Up above, beyond the canopy, thunder shook the sky. The trees reverberated accordingly. A bird gave a cry of warning, and the jungle became eerily silent all too quickly. Deep unease ran down Mabel’s spine, and she stopped walking, turning to look uncertainly at Ford.

The first drop of rain landed between her feet, and the ground sizzled. The strong scent of acid took over her senses. 

“Cover, now!” Ford bellowed, hiking his hood over his head with one hand and yanking Mabel’s up with the other. The rain wasn’t awfully heavy, but that didn’t seem to matter much to Mabel’s skin at the moment. She stumbled forward as he shoved her between her shoulder blades, scanning around them. Where, where—

“Up there, there’s a cave!” He shouted behind her. 

“But last time—”

“Last time was different!” 

He had a point, but she still wasn’t too keen on the idea of willingly entering the rocky labyrinth that the jungle concealed so well, considering that they’d barely escaped with their lives last time. He shoved her again, urging her forward, and she blew past a fern, the back of her right hand brushing the wet surface of the wide, flat leaf. Immediately, her skin started to burn, and she realized belatedly that the surface of the leaf had been covered in large drops of rain. She clenched her jaw and ignored the tears pricking in her eyes, setting her sights on the cave. 

It was a fierce battle against the instinct to breathe heavily when they burst through the safety of the cave, but Mabel pressed her good hand tight to her face and fought her lungs for control,  _ just  _ in case they were on the doorstep of something much bigger than they were. Ford was pressed against the rock next to her, engaged in a similar struggle.

“Since when does this place have acid rain?” Mabel hissed as soon as she could.

“I don’t know,” Ford gasped back. “I don’t—I’ve never seen that before!”

“Shh,” she said, flapping her right hand at him to remind him to control his volume, then instantly regretting the motion. Her breath hitched, and she drew her hand back to her chest, curling protectively around it and taking a shuddering inhale as she clenched her fist.

“Were you hit?” Ford asked, all alarm.

“I’m  _ fine _ .”

“Here, let me see—”

She turned away, shaking her head even as Ford’s hand landed uselessly on her elbow. “I said I’m fine, we can worry about it in BB-).”

“Come on, darling, let me flush it, at least.”

She didn’t look at him, but from the concern in his voice she could picture the exact crease in his forehead. And he didn’t drop pet names quite like Stan had, like they were free, no, Ford held his cards somewhat closer. The fact that he’d referred to her as darling meant that he was legitimately shaken, and that realization was what made her agree. “Okay,” she said thinly, and from the way he cleared his throat, she knew she’d be receiving a lecture on playing the hero once they were safe in another dimension. 

They knelt. Mabel rested her forearm on her knee, ground her teeth so hard she thought they’d pop right out of her skull, and distracted herself with the collidoscope as Ford used their precious clean water supply to wash any remaining acid off of her hand. “What, were you planning on hiding this until we got to the port?” Ford asked gently, not looking up from her fingers. “How many times have I told you that you have to tell me when you’re hurt?”

She unclenched her jaw enough to say, “It doesn’t really matter. I’d be fine. We’re wasting time.” 

Ford clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “That’s about the dumbest thing you’ve said all year. I need you in top shape, dear, you know that.” 

Mabel couldn’t help the whimper in her throat when he wrapped a bandage around her palm, but his murmurs of encouragement didn’t falter. She swallowed and looked back at the sputtering machine, and then she swore.

“What is it?” Ford’s hand tensed on her forearm. “Did I hurt you?”

“It redirected through the caves,” she said, tilting the device so he could see.

“Is that all?” Ford asked, relief in his voice. Mabel stared at him. 

“Is that all?” She echoed. “It added like seven hours and it’s all underground!”

He was backlit by already dim light, so Mabel couldn’t make out his face, but his tone was sharpening rapidly. “We’re certainly not going back out there, but we do have to keep going. There’s no telling when the rain’s going to let up. This is the best way forward.”

Protests clawed at her throat. She didn’t  _ want  _ to be in the caves. Everything about them made her feel like her heart was going to permanently move into her throat, and he  _ knew  _ she still had nightmares where she woke up just for the certainty that she was filling her lungs with air and not water—

“I know you’re hurt. And scared,” he said.

“I’m not scared,” she retorted instantly. 

Somehow, he managed to make his faceless silence feel like an arched eyebrow. 

“But we have to keep going,” he said, continuing as if she hadn’t just told the most blatant lie of her life. 

She swallowed, looking deeper into the cave. After a brief moment in which she genuinely considered how long she’d last in the acid rain, she sighed. 

“Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My notes include: Young Mabel about Ford is just “you have your law practice and me, i have all these fucking markers”. Thanks for reading!


	5. On Mabel and Trauma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel's time alone comes to light. Mixed POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: self-administered first aid

_ October 17, 2016 _

“I just realized something,” Mabel whispered the next morning as they packed up their minimal campsite.

Well, morning was a loose term, Ford conceded. They had continued deeper into the tunnels for maybe thirty minutes last night before setting up camp for an uneasy sleep, after waiting to see if the acid would increase in its ferocity. Even though it hadn’t gotten any heavier than a steady drizzle, he was nervous. He and Mabel had been caught in a cave flood years prior, but that had been with normal rain. At least they’d been able to run through the water without it eating at their muscles. Honestly, between the tunnel system and the potential for flooding, he thought Mabel was more willing to go see if the insectoids would offer her sanctuary.

She’d barely slept. He certainly hadn’t. 

But now they were up. By his estimate, the sun should be rising soon if it hadn’t already. 

“What’s that?” Ford whispered back. Mabel knelt next to him, flexing her hands out to roll up her sleeping bag, but he nudged her aside and did it himself in deft, tight motions. No use agitating her burn earlier than they had to. 

Mabel stood up, and he heard her pull her flashlight out of her belt. “We know why the locals have such sturdy exoskeletons now.”

The snap of the elastic was too loud in the tunnels, but Ford got it over with quickly. He stuffed the roll into Mabel’s backpack and picked it up, helping her into it like he would a jacket. “You’re absolutely right,” he said after a moment, recalling the shiny black shells and chuckling a little at the observation. “See? Everything’s a learning experience.”

She snorted at that, turning back around and flicking her flashlight over the tunnel walls. “Ready?”

He picked up his pack with a grunt. “Yes.”

Because of how much harder it was to be quiet in what was for all intents and purposes an echo chamber, they didn’t speak as they walked. Instead, their attentions were focused on things like Not Tripping and keeping their ears strained for anything that might be down there with them. He couldn’t say that he was happy to be back in this place, either, but if less than a second of contact with the rain had left Mabel with that ugly of a burn _,_ he knew that they were better off in here than out there. 

The only visible motion was Mabel’s flashlight, passing in a steady sweep along the length of the tunnel. Occasionally, she’d hold up her bandaged hand, and Ford would stop on a dime and wait for whatever she had heard. More often than not, it was one of the blue-spotted lizards that seemed to populate these caves, but he wasn’t going to tell her off for caution.

It was at least two hours before Mabel lifted her hand again. This time, the motion continued, and she glanced over her shoulder to make sure Ford was looking when she pointed at the end of the tunnel. When he gave her a quizzical look, not understanding her meaning, she sighed and turned the flashlight off. After a moment of dizzying darkness, his eyes adjusted to the light, and he saw what she had: a dim blue light. 

Ford frowned, peering over her shoulder at the collidascope, which indicated that they still had several hours in the tunnels before they would emerge. It blinked pleasantly in the otherwise dark passage. He glanced at Mabel, who was looking at him, expectant. When he met her eyes, she looked at the end, then back at him. Opened her mouth. “I think it’s a cavern,” she breathed, barely audible.

His frown deepened, and he lifted his head to squint at the dim light, but he couldn’t tell. “If you say so.”

She seemed to be waiting for something. Ford glanced between the collidascope, the prick of light, Mabel. “Do you want me to go first?”

Mabel shook her head after a moment of contemplation. “Let’s just go,” she said, tucking the collidascope into her pocket to eliminate its light. 

He caught her wrist. “Are you sure?”

She shook her head again, and he slackened his grip, moving his hand to press on her back, so he could follow her closely in the darkness. “We’ll get closer, and see what it is, and we’ll go from there,” she said.

“Alright,” he agreed, biting back another ‘If you say so’. 

The speck of blue became more and more defined, and soon Ford was able to see that she’d been right, it was a cavern. When they got close enough that he could see, he took his hand off of her back, sliding along the wall to get a good look inside. 

The ceiling was high, relatively spherical, maybe twenty, thirty feet up, and smooth the whole way around, with a small hole at the center through which daylight was filtering. Ford was reminded, of all the ridiculous things, of a melon baller. 

Mabel, plastered against the other wall of the tunnel, was not enjoying the sight as much as he was. Her gaze was fixed fiercely on something that must have been nestled along the wall Ford couldn’t see. He craned his neck to see, and she clicked her tongue sharply, stopping him in his tracks. Ford looked at her, alarmed, and she grit her teeth, jerking her head in a silent message. Get next to me.

As quiet as he could, he crossed the tunnel, putting his hands flat against the wall and leaning over Mabel’s head to see what she was looking at. It had to be some kind of cave crawler, he reasoned. He’d never encountered this particular breed before, but other jungle dimensions he’d encountered hosted similar species, so he didn’t feel entirely unprepared.

Something was rustling, and he glanced sharply from the slumbering beast to the dark tunnel, but then Ford realized that it was Mabel, trembling.

“It’s okay,” he said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible, because it was really unlike her to shake like this. “We just need to sneak around it. It seems like it’s sleeping pretty heavily. It won’t wake up.”

Mabel looked up, and--well, Ford wasn’t entirely sure what he’d expected. Fear? Uncertainty? But he was alarmed when he saw Mabel’s eyes. She looked afraid, yes, but there was also an overwhelming anger, settled decisively in her usually warm brown eyes. “We don’t know that,” she said grimly. “I’m not taking that chance again.”

“Again?”

Before he could do anything to stop her, Mabel was drawing her gun. She checked the cavern, on all sides, and when apparently she deemed it clear, she took three steps towards the sleeping cave crawler.

A muffled discharge of her weapon punctuated every step she took, and abruptly, the low rumble of the crawler’s steady breathing cut off.

Ford stared between Mabel’s hunched shoulders and the crawler’s face, now new and improved with three additional orifices. He was swept over in an odd gratitude that the direct daylight didn’t reach its body. Utterly floored by what had just happened, he turned his disbelieving eyes on Mabel, whose clomping boots now crossed the cavern to a small pile of miscellaneous trinkets. She knelt to sift through the various objects, shoulders still tightly drawn.

“That… was unlike you,” he said when he found his voice. 

Her head twitched in his direction, but she didn’t look up from the pile. 

He crossed the cavern, casting the occasional glance down either tunnel as he slowly picked his way to Mabel. Before he could reach her and see what she’d found, she stood up, stuffing something into her pocket. She didn’t meet his eyes. “We need to keep moving,” she said.

“Yes, but—are we going to talk about what just happened?” Ford demanded, brows furrowed. “‘Again’, Mabel? What does again mean?”

Mabel shook her head. “Not while we’re in here.” Her eyes began to drift towards the lion, and it would have been impossible to miss the way she snapped them forward and squeezed them shut. “Can’t you just use the destabilizer?”

He shook his head. “You know it’s too risky. We might end up  _ months  _ away, or get caught after one tear. We have to go this way.”

Mabel set her jaw and pried one eye open to fix him with a stare. “Okay,” she said in a small tone. “Can we just keep going, then?” 

Reluctantly, he agreed. 

>>>>>•<<<<<<

_ June 18th, 2015 _

It had been Ford’s birthday three days ago, she realized too late. 

Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d remembered, she supposed, carefully marking another hatch in her journal. He was still lost. She was still alone. And she still had no idea how to find him. 

The sunny meadow around her was pleasant. She didn’t want to leave this dimension, she thought hazily, watching a pair of birds play under the shadow of a shrub. Maybe she could just stay here, and wait for Ford to find her. It wasn’t the first time she’d considered the possibility.

But then the birds suddenly flitted deep into the safety of the shrub, silencing their chirping, and the hair on the back of her neck lifted. Mabel glanced behind her, wary. She couldn’t see anything, but the locals knew the danger better than she did, so she followed their cue. Her journal shut with a hearty thunk, and she slipped into her backpack, eyes scanning warily over the hills. Her coat, she’d spread on the ground, but now she picked it up, swinging it around her shoulders and shrugging her bag on over top of it. It was too hot here for the coat to be anything but stifling, but she would rather have it on while she ran, rather than risk dropping it. She fingered the knife on her belt as she headed back towards the town, still checking her shoulder every few steps. 

She considered the possibility that it had been nothing, jumping across a stone gutter and planting her boots on the cobbled street of the town. Either way, it was safer here. Her pocket jingled with the wages she’d made picking fruit yesterday and today, but it was time to leave now. She would get herself a meal, she decided, and protein rations if she could, and she’d be on her way. Not for the first time in her solo venture, she missed Ford’s DPS, and lamented the fact that he’d been holding it when the dimensional overlap had occurred and snatched her away.

She rounded into the town square, waving warmly to the local Sidarthoids that looked up at her. That was something Ford hated.  _ Keep your head down,  _ he would have scolded, ushering her along.  _ You’ve got a bounty on your head by nature of your humanity.  _

Mabel filled her water bottle at the pump, shoving aside the sudden pang of missing Ford.  _ Get it together, Pines,  _ she rebuked herself, since he wasn’t there to do it.  _ You’re going to go into the bar, get something in your stomach, and get out of dodge.  _ She’d never understood that reference, but she’d heard adults say it even before she met Ford, so it had a spot in her mental list of pop culture references to learn once she got back to earth.

Water splashed over the rim of the bottle onto her hands, and she hastily released the pump, wiping her hand dry on her pants. Wet fabric was hardly something she’d ever considered a pleasant sensation, but the coolness felt amazing with her coat on. 

She took a swig, topped her bottle off, and made for the pub. The kind elderly creature who ran it greeted her. “Oh, human!” She said, moving down the bar to where Mabel had taken a seat.

“Hello, Sidarthoid,” Mabel replied with a smile. “Can I get… oh, whatever you gave me last night was wonderful.”

“I’m not feeding you the same thing twice in a row. You just relax, we’ll get you set up with something good,” the Sidarthoid said in the soothing manner of a Southern grandmother. “Why do you look like you’re leaving?”

“I am,” Mabel replied. “I stopped in here to get some food, figured I’d grab some for the road, and then I’m out. The, um, the blue one at the orchards said he knew of a breach to L7-11 he’d take me to.”

The Sidarthoid stroked her chin with one furred, four-fingered paw, then patted the counter. “You stay put. I’ll get you some ompertza.”

“Omper—? You know what, sounds good,” Mabel agreed. 

The Sidarthoid bumbled off, and Mabel was left alone at the counter. She was the only non-Sidarthoid in the room. On Earth, she’d never minded standing out in a crowd, but there was something deeply unnerving about being the only one of her species. 

Alone in the universe.

She took her journal out of her bag and opened it to a fresh page. She’d been doing her best to keep up with her studies, because she wanted to be able to show Ford  _ something  _ when she found him again, so she tried not to stare and instead took quick glances around her, sketching different parts of different Sidarthoids until she had a complete figure on her page. Next to it, she jotted down notes, about the heights, colorations, the size of family units. She’d noticed that several of the Sidarthoids, male and female, had beads braided into their manes. They seemed to be made of either glass or wood, painted bright colors, and Mabel jotted it down before holding her pen off of the paper and admiring the way that one teal creature’s beads caught the light. 

“Here. Ompertza.”

Mabel looked up as her friend set a plate of what looked like pale green potstickers in front of her. She observed the ompertza with as much interest as the Sidarthoid studied the open page of her journal.

“You’re very good,” she said. 

Mabel smiled, self-conscious. “Thank you. I was wondering—what are the beads for?”

“Hmm?”

“On those three, and that one over there, they’ve braided beads into their hair,” Mabel said. “Are they culturally significant?”

Her friend snorted in amusement. “They are adolescents,” she said. “The beads are a trend. My granddaughter wears them, she likes the green ones. They’re just for decoration.”

Mabel deflated a little. “Oh.”

“But that does not make them  _ in _ significant,” the Sidarthoid continued. She nudged the plate towards Mabel. “Here. You eat. Enough talk.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you, it smells fantastic.”

She hummed in acceptance and wandered further down to serve another patron. Mabel picked up one of the dumplings and bit off the corner of it. She was surprised by the juicy, rich meat and vegetable mix inside, but it was as delicious as it smelled, and she had half a mind to flag down her friend and ask for the recipe. Instead of doing that, Mabel sketched one quickly and tried to describe the taste. 

When she’d finished, the Sidarthoid came back. This time, though, she looked like she was excited about something. “Here,” she said, holding out a paw. “My granddaughter has spares. Do you like pink?”

Mabel stared at the three pink beads, glass, with tiny yellow dots. “They’re beautiful!”

The Sidarthoid extended her paw with a happy hum, and Mabel accepted the beads. “Thank you!”

“Go on,” she said, and Mabel beamed, taking the string out of her ponytail and getting started on a thin braid down the side of her face. 

The Sidarthoid’s smile faded as Mabel got to work. “Human,” she said, tone forcibly even, “Are you matured?”

“Hmm?” Mabel finished the braid about halfway down, holding the end tight, before tying her hair back into a ponytail. She tilted her head so that the beads would catch the light, delighted to see three small spots of pink glowing on the countertop.

“Our kind,” the Sidarthoid said, jerking her head at the beaded adolescents, “Don’t reach maturity until they’re five years old. You speak older than that, but you do not show signs of age.”

“Oh,” Mabel said. “I, um…” Stalling, she jotted the new information down in the journal. She didn’t want to respond. Well, that wasn’t true, entirely. Mabel had no issue with responding, but Ford’s nagging voice in her head was yelling at her to _ NOT go around, sharing your vulnerabilities with strangers! _

“No, I’m not an adult,” she admitted, a little sheepish at the admission. “My species… we get societal privileges at eighteen years, but our brains aren’t done cooking until twenty-six.” Dipper had gone through a brief psychology phase in sixth grade, so she knew more than she cared to about developmental stages, types of aphasia, and synesthesia. She touched her braid, running the pads of her fingertips over the beads.

The Sidarthoid hummed. “And how old are you?”

Mabel listed her head from side to side before deciding on the ambiguous, “Not eighteen yet.”

“And you die at twenty-six?”

“What? No!” Mabel shook her head. “No, we don’t die of age until we’re, like, eighty or ninety.”

The Sidarthoid made an impressed sound in her throat, but it was tinged with sympathy. “Do you stay in packs? Or are you settled, like we are?”

Mabel winced. “I—at home, we’re settled. All over our planet. And we stay with our families, but I got separated from mine. Well, I--I got separated my family, and then I found  _ another  _ member of my family, who was also alone. And then I lost him, too. It’s just the two of us.” She drummed her fingers on the countertop and tried to push down the overwhelming panic, reminiscent of being a child in a grocery store who had strayed too far from their parent. Still, it was hard not to sound like a lost kid when she added, “I can’t find him.”

The Sidarthoid made another distressed noise. “You should stay,” the Sidarthoid said. “Here, in town. I have room. You can wait for your packmate here.”

It was fortunate, then, that at that moment the door slammed open and Mabel jumped, because if not for the interruption she very likely would have given in to the tempting yes. 

But as it was, she returned her journal to her bag quickly, eyes snapping to the door and heart sinking when she recognized the figure. She had been right to flee the meadow, but she clearly hadn’t done so sneakily enough. 

Helmet’s boots hit the floor heavily as they stalked up to the bar and slid into the seat next to Mabel. To be fair, their name probably wasn’t Helmet, but Mabel had never learned their real name, and it was better than just referring to them as Nameless Bounty Hunter. There were far too many nameless bounty hunters to keep track of without names, and  _ Helmet _ seemed more personal than  _ Number 18.  _ Mabel had first met Helmet in a skiff chase when she was thirteen. Apparently, Ford was wanted in more dimensions than states Stan was banned from, and he had a whole host of bounty hunters interested in collecting the rewards he’d racked up. 

The stool next to Mabel creaked as Helmet settled into it. They didn’t remove their headgear, but they never did, so that particular detail was of little to no consequence beyond scenebuilding. Mabel stiffened in her stool. “What do you want?”

“I’ve got a job for you, if you’ll take it,” they responded quietly. 

“I don’t want your work,” she said. “I told you last time. I’m not interested in bounty hunting, and you refuse to tell me where he is, so we have nothing to talk about.”

Helmet didn’t respond. Mabel’s Sidarthoid friend tried to speak, but Mabel shook her head, a little harsh. “Well? Do you know where he is, or not?”

They lifted their head. “I can’t say,” they said, and Mabel would have believed their voice was sympathetic if she thought they were capable of such an emotion. “But I can give you a DPS as payment, and a quadrant he’s been sighted in.”

Her eyes near bugged out of her head. A dimensional positioning system would change the game. Breaches sometimes went to two or three alternative dimensions, and the only way to know where you were was to be familiar with your destination, or have a device that could tell. It would change her game, at least in terms of routing a course to Ford.

She looked at her friend. “I wish I could stay,” she began, but the Sidarthoid was already shaking her head. “Find your pack, youngling.”

“How much for the food?”

“No. Go on, go.”

Mabel protested, but her new employer took her lightly by the arm and guided her out of the bar. Back outside in the summer sun, her coat was sweltering again. 

She crossed her arms, yanking her elbow from Helmet’s grip. “So? What do you want?”

They wordlessly handed her a folded photograph. Mabel opened the paper, frowning at the yellow, bell-shaped flower. “What, did you forget your anniversary or something?” 

“The nectar makes a powerful aphrodisiac, and I have a buyer,” they said. “It’s in the jungle on AN997.”

Her eyes widened, and she held the paper a little further away. “AN997? Now I know why you’re not going yourself. The last time I stopped there I almost got eaten.”

“Well, don’t almost get eaten this time,” they snarked back. “Look—the carnivores live towards the southern part of the jungle, and the flowers grow in the northeast. If you’re stealthy, you’ll be fine.”

She crossed her arms. “How am I supposed to get there?”

They pulled a phaser out of their holster, punched something into its handle, and fired it at the water pump. Just before the beam connected, it split vertically, and a raw breach hovered in the center of the square.

Mabel seethed. “You have. A highly illegal.  _ PROGRAMMABLE _ atomic destabilizer. And you  _ still _ won’t take me to Ford?!”

In reply, they jerked their head at the breach.

“What’s your deal?” She demanded, turning her back to the breach in order to properly yell at the bounty hunter.

“You’re making a scene,” Helmet said flatly in response. Mabel faltered; if the presence of an artificial breach in their town square wasn’t enough to attract the attention of the Sidarthoids, her shouting did the trick.

Muttering about selfish jerks and people with no hearts, Mabel tucked the photograph of the daffodil-like flower into her pocket and stuck one foot through the breach. 

She turned, pausing. “Will you at least tell me the quadrant he’s in before I go?”

Helmet didn’t move for a moment. Then, they gave a muffled, “I’ve got a source that saw him at a port in Z+12. Quadrant 7. A week ago.”

She didn’t know if she’d expected to feel relief or resolve or anything at all when she heard the news. Quadrant 7 was nearly clean on the other side of the multiverse. She was still just as alone as she’d been before.

Still, a hopeful, logic-defying stir moved in her chest, and she gave a small nod before ducking all the way through the breach.

The difference in temperature was minimal, but she could practically feel her hair begin to frizz the instant she came through. Helmet shoved their head through the breach after her, as if they’d forgotten something. “Be back here in two hours, and I’ll open the breach again.”

Despite the heat of the jungle, Mabel froze. “Wait, you’re just going to leave me stranded here?”

They waved the gun. “Highly illegal, as you so deftly and  _ loudly  _ pointed out. I don’t want to gather attention.”

“You—!”

“Two hours,” they said, and then they were ducking back through, and the breach vanished, and Mabel was alone in the jungle.

If she wasn’t painfully aware of the kinds of dangers this jungle held, she would have very much liked to stomp her feet and kick and swear at that stupid collector. Instead of releasing her emotions and alerting every predator in a three-mile radius to her presence, though, Mabel grit her teeth and snatched the photograph out of her pocket, glaring at the flower on the paper, then looking around. None in her immediate vicinity. She fished her compass out of her pocket and headed northeast, cursing every dimension she’d ever been to under her breath the entire time. 

The walk was largely uneventful. It was daytime in the jungle, and although the world was violently green, the sunlight dappled in a beautiful way to the floor. Mabel actually paused for a moment to take it in, because she’d learned to take every opportunity to absorb beauty, and this was no exception. There was a small hiccup in the journey when Mabel had to reroute around a large, sleeping creature. Before falling through the portal, she would never have labelled it ‘cute’ (it looked as if a gorilla, a leopard, and a rhinoceros had had some fun and produced offspring) but despite its leathery hide and what looked to be massive claws on thumbed hands, it wasn’t the ugliest thing she’d ever seen. Mabel made a mental note to avoid it on the way back, lest she disrupt its slumber and meet the business end of those talons. 

She walked for a good hour, passing through patches of sunlight and stepping around waxy-leaved plants, ducking under vines and crossing small creeks, before she finally saw a plant bearing the right flower. It sat in its own patch of sunlight, like some god was shining a spotlight down just for her to find.

She checked her photograph to be sure, then realized she hadn’t asked Helmet how they’d wanted the plant picked. If they were looking for a live specimen and she delivered just a stem and petals, she doubted she’d get her reward. 

Mabel frowned at the soil. “Why couldn’t it have been something easy like a morality contest?” She said out loud. “I could ace a morality contest. This is stupid.” With a resigned sigh, she dug her hands into the soil and took the plant out, roots and all. She didn’t have anywhere to put it, so she picked a large leaf from a plant and wrapped the roots up. She tied it with a vine and checked her handiwork before wrapping the whole thing in her coat, securing the bundle in an upright position in her backpack, and checking the time. 

Oh, she’d need to hurry back, she only had forty-five minutes to make it back to her pick-up. She could make it, she knew that, but it didn’t keep her anxiety at bay as she retraced her steps through the hazardous jungle, at a brisk jog this time. 

As she approached the sleeping beast, she prepared herself to run around its napping spot, but she realized that it must have woken up and moved, because there was a beast-sized indent in the ferns, and the thing was nowhere to be seen. Her initial instinct was relief. She didn’t have to worry about waking it up.

Then, seven seconds later, apprehension raced down her spine when she remembered that even if she hadn’t  _ angered _ it by waking it up, it was still awake, which made it dangerous. And she didn’t have a clue as to where it was. She checked the soil hurriedly for tracks, but there weren’t any to be found. A bird cried somewhere in the treetops, and the loud, shrill noise spurred her into action. Even as she continued to the rendezvous point, she glanced over her shoulders frequently, eyes scanning the dense greenery for any signs of motion.

By the time she made it back to where she’d been (rather rudely, in her opinion) deposited in the jungle, her watch said she had five minutes left before Helmet opened the breach again. The straps of her backpack were chafing against her sticky shoulders. _ I wish they’d hurry up,  _ she thought absently, wiping at the sweat on the back of her neck. 

A part of her wanted to set her bag down and relax until the breach opened again. A much larger part of her recognized that letting her guard down was a bad idea. As a compromise, she took off her backpack and held it in her lap as she sat down, leaning against a mossy tree. It really was a nice jungle in the daytime. Mabel let her head fall back against the softness of the moss, watching some kind of small, monkey-like critter scuttle along a branch far over her head. Bright, warm, safe. 

Well, maybe not that last one, she amended, jolting to her feet as the monkey-thing was abruptly knocked off of its branch by a large form. It had moved so quickly that she hadn’t been able to make out its silhouette, but she felt a sinking certainty that it was the cat-gorilla-rhino thing. Now on her toes, she looped her bag back over her shoulders, searching the canopy. 

Somewhere behind her, a vine snapped. Mabel’s head whipped towards the sound, and her right hand reached for her sheath, tightening around the handle of her knife. She was scouring the jungle now, peering through the sunlight that filtered through the canopy to the shadows beyond. 

Claws tore at her left arm, and Mabel couldn’t help her shout of pain as she was yanked around. Before she could orient herself, the cat-gorilla-rhino swatted at her with a flat paw, and Mabel hit the dirt.

She twisted, scooting backwards in the dirt, pulling her knife and scrambling to her feet. Any redeeming adorable-ness that the creature had had while it was asleep was stolen by consciousness. Now, it was all snarls and piercing glares, and  _ shit _ , she knew her arm was in a bad way but at least the adrenaline was preventing any sensation but a low throbbing. Mabel wished she’d pestered Ford for a real gun instead of opting to work with just her knife. 

The thing huffed, taking a hesitant step backwards on its knuckles. Mabel steadied her blade and matched the creature’s walk, revolving in a slow, cautious circle. It was taller than it had looked when it was curled up in a ball, and although it walked on its knuckles like a gorilla, its claws retracted like a feline. Mabel swallowed, because the more she looked at its rough, leathery skin, the more she doubted her own ability to get a good stick with her knife. She always hated fighting animals more than people. She preferred to believe in the good in people, though she’d come to accept the fact that they have the capacity for evil. Animals didn’t. They were just scared.

The thing reared onto its hind legs, tail lashing, and beat at its chest with its fists. She should have taken the opportunity to jab at its exposed stomach, but instead, she dove out of the way. She rolled over the damp soil, heart pounding as the thing brought its fists down right where she’d been standing. Mabel scrambled back to her feet. She had to do it this time, right? She had to take the next opportunity to strike, she had to defend herself, dammit—

The creature wheeled on its fists, snorted at her, and charged.

All thoughts of standing her ground were washed aside by the overwhelming need to flee. Mabel turned, ready to bolt, but her head jerked back and her feet slipped out from underneath her and  _ it had her by the hair— _

“Get down!”

Mabel could barely process the words, let alone that someone had spoken, but despite the stress to her scalp, she went limp. The creature hefted her ponytail in one fist, and her feet left the ground for a split second. A blaster fired, and the creature roared. Mabel hit the ground, wincing against the sudden stench of burnt hair. Over her head, there were more shots, but the creature was already lowing and retreating, vines and ferns snapping as it trampled away from whoever had the gun. 

Mabel heard a low voice swear, and she looked up, glaring against the glow of the breach. The breach… Helmet?

“Get up, come on,” Helmet said, grabbing her good arm and hauling her to her feet. Their grip was firm enough to keep her from falling, but light enough not to hurt. They moved with purpose, leaping through the breach and tugging Mabel through behind them. 

The sun was lower, closer to the horizon. It wasn’t quite sunset, but the sky was yellowing where it met the meadows. The town square was empty of Sidarthoids, the only sounds the gentle bubble of the fountain and Mabel and Helmet’s own hoarse gasps, and the energetic buzzing of the breach sealing in their wake.

Helmet dropped Mabel’s arm, and she staggered away from them, leaning against the water pump as she tried to regain control of her breathing. She opened her mouth several times to try to clear her ears, but all she could hear was the rushing of blood and her loud exhales. 

It took several repetitions of the phrase for her to hear Helmet’s “Are you alright?”

When she finally processed the phrase, she didn’t have enough self control to filter her reaction. “Am I  _ okay?!  _ You locked me in the jungle with that thing! You shot my hair off!”

“You’re hurt.”

“Yeah, I’m hurt!” She struggled to get her pack off of her shoulders, hissing sharply as the strap slid down her left arm. Seething, she opened the flap and removed the wad of fabric, shaking her coat out and letting the contents hit the ground. The flower skidded a few feet before hitting the base of the fountain, roots intact. Mabel stuffed her coat back into her bag and put it on her right shoulder, standing where she was and glaring at Helmet. “Take your stupid flower and just leave me alone! I never want to see you again!”

“Kid—“

“Don’t call me kid!” She shouted, already hoisting her bag higher on her good shoulder and wheeling around. “Just— ugh!” 

Her feet were pointed towards the meadow she’d rested in earlier, so with only a moment’s hesitation, during which she considered and rejected the notion of going back to the Sidarthoid’s bar, she headed towards it. As she marched away from the town, she passed between two buildings, and a breeze followed her through the alley. The weight of her hair around her face made her stop, lifting her right hand from the strap of her bag to pat experimentally around her head. A good chunk of her hair was cropped short, shot clean off by Helmet’s blast. They were a hell of a marksman, she’d give them that, but this was ridiculous. She huffed and ran a hand through it to clear her face as she broke through to the edge of town. The shortest pieces didn’t quite reach her shoulders now, though she suspected that she’d have to cut several more inches off if she wanted to remove the burning, stinking parts. Mabel gasped suddenly, grabbing at the side of her hair, but her fears were confirmed—her braid was loose, and the beads were gone. It was less the fact that the beads themselves were gone, and more that the Sidarthoid had shown her so much kindness, that made her tear up in their absence. 

_ Stop it _ , she scolded herself. For these months she’d been on her own, she’d gotten used to telling herself what to do in a detached sort of way, but this was the most extreme instance of it so far.  _ You’re going to go make a camp. You’re going to fix your arm. You’re going to cut your hair. You’re going to sleep, and then you’re going to take the next portal towards— _

She stumbled, turning on her heel and swearing as she looked back at the village. She’d left Helmet without getting her dimensional positioning system! She’d gone through all that, and all she had to show for it was a quadrant and a glimpse of Ford that was over a week old! 

She stared at the village and stomped her foot, because she wanted to shout, but the petulant action seemed a better outlet. There was no way she was marching back in there. She’d said she never wanted to see Helmet again, and she meant it. Gritting her teeth, she amended her list. 

Mabel made it back to the little spot she’d found earlier and settled down. She’d have to do the most important work while there was still light, and then she could take a nap. Stitch her arm, cut her hair, clean her coat. She fished her first-aid kit from the bottom of her bag, then dumped out the rest of her backpack for good measure. There was plenty of soil in it, loose from the coat, and she didn’t want it contaminating her food. 

Mabel cracked open her water bottle and set it aside before opening the first aid kit. She thread her needle, knotted the string, and held the needle in her mouth while she twisted the cap off of the tiny bottle of disinfectant. It worked for two purposes, because she wouldn’t want to set down the otherwise clean needle in the soil, and it also muffled the sound she made at the sting. She cleaned the following slices as quickly as she could, then cleaned the needle, holding it up to her biceps and gauging the length of the lacerations. How many stitches did she need to make? She’d prefer to go with the fewest possible, but she knew she’d need  _ some.  _

She decided on four for the longest one. Just four, she told herself. She could do this. 

It wasn’t the first time she’d had stitches. She’d had them when she was six, back home in Piedmont, after she’d tripped on the driveway and busted her chin open. She remembered that the numbing agent that they’d used at the emergency room hadn’t worked on her, though she didn’t remember exactly what it had felt like. 

This served as a decent reminder.

By the end of it, she was sweaty, exhausted, and out of sticks within arm’s reach to bite down on. She spat the last of the splintered bark out of her mouth and tied off the gauze. She’d need to trade for more soon, or maybe she could find some old rags no one needed and boil them before wrapping her arm. That would work, right? She put the first-aid kit away with relish and grabbed her knife. Time for part two. 

It was hard to cut her own hair without a mirror, but at least it didn’t matter what it looked like. Mabel missed having time to care about her appearance. Working off of touch, she cut through lock after lock until she couldn’t feel any strand that was obscenely longer than the rest. It was short now, maybe halfway down her neck, but long enough that she could gather back the top and tie it out of her face. Maybe she could get a headband again. 

She brushed tiny bits of hair off of her knife before sheathing it. The sun was setting now, the last orange beams clawing at the sky for dear life, but it was only a matter of minutes before the light would be extinguished. Mabel huffed, stood quickly, and beat her coat against a tree. Once she was satisfied that she’d gotten most of the soil off of it, she went back to her backpack, rested her head on top of it, and drew the coat tight over her shoulders. She turned to lay on her right arm, with her back turned on the village. None of them would bother her.

Her eyes had barely drifted shut when she heard footsteps coming up behind her. Alert again, she sat up straight, leaning on her right hand and looking around to see Helmet, standing with hunched shoulders not twenty feet away.

Mabel opened her mouth to tell them to just leave her alone, but then they turned and said something, and Mabel’s Sidarthoid was cresting the small hill, too. Her face looked pained as she took in Mabel’s state.

Helmet said something else and pressed a black box into the Sidarthoid’s paw before casting one last look at Mabel. Then they turned, shot a breach into the air in front of them, and vanished through it.

Mabel rubbed her eyes, trying to erase the outline of the glowing breach that had been burned into her retinas. When she opened them, the Sidarthoid was approaching slowly. “You’re hurt,” she said.

Mabel didn’t know what to say. Helmet, she would have had no problem yelling at, but the Sidarthoid had never done anything to harm her, and she was so sick and tired of not being able to trust even the good people she met.

Ford had been wrong before, maybe he was wrong about  _ trust no one _ , too. After all, she’d had to trust Ford, hadn’t she?

“Come with me,” the Sidarthoid said, coming closer. “We’ll get you a real bed. Come come, come.”

Mabel stood up, holding her backpack and coat hesitantly. She was glad she hadn’t been wearing it, or it would be torn like her shirt. The Sidarthoid rested her paw on the small of Mabel’s back, and Mabel opened her mouth to say something,  _ anything,  _ but she couldn’t. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“It’s alright,” the Sidarthoid said softly.

“What’s your name?” Mabel asked.

She hummed. “Martha.”

Mabel made a small, wet noise of surprise. It was the most familiar name she’d ever heard in the multiverse, even when she and Ford had met those alternate-earth humans. 

Martha blinked. “What?”

“Nothing. Just… I like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not me updating a day early because i wrote five thousand words of my poor girl fending for herself


	6. Approaching the Finish Line (With a Brief Intermission to Cross a Finish Line of Significantly Less Importance)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> High school is stressful. Dipper's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw/ sports-induced injury and home first aid/Dipper gets a scratch :(

_ October 17, 2016 _

The next day at school felt dragged out, like time was ticking at a slower rate than usual. But after it was all over (the final bell, the shout of “Don’t be late!” as he passed Coach Cramm’s classroom, the drive back to the Shack with Pacifica silently DJing), the day felt remarkably short. He’d gone out back to feed Waddles (who was now too big for Stan to allow in the house, and had been relocated to live outside with Gompers), but the process was more mechanical than usual. Dipper was surprised to see afternoon sunlight filtering into the gift shop as he and Pacifica lazily manned the counter.

“How come you didn’t tell McGucket about your parents?” Pacifica asked. “It’s been almost two years, Dip.” Her tone was careful, like she didn’t want the reminder to hurt him more than it had to, and when he glanced at her from under the rim of his ragged cap, she only met his gaze for a second before returning her focus to the register. 

Dipper scratched at his hairline and tried to look anywhere else; his eyes settled on a kid as he nearly shattered a snowglobe. “I guess it’s just easier not to correct anyone at this point,” he decided. “I moved in with Stan after Mabel went missing, and they were alive then. I wasn’t exactly spreading the news. If Gravity Falls thinks they’re still in California, then that’s fine. They can believe what they want. Besides, it’s not important now.”

“I mean… as long as you’re okay,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

_ Good thing it’s not your problem, then.  _ Dipper bit back the retort. She was only bringing up the crash because she cared. Snapping at her wouldn’t serve to do much except alienate him from his only friend, and then where would he be?

Last night, Dipper had darted back down to the lab and told Stan what Pacifica had told him that  _ he’d told her she could move in here and, please, Stan, can she?  _ Stan’s face had contorted in a sour way before he’d turned back to McGucket at the computers, nodding and waving a hand to shoo Dipper out. It didn’t take brains like Dipper’s to know exactly why Stan had scowled so deeply. Dipper had taken Pacifica back to her house, where she’d run inside and packed a bag that would last her a couple of days, until they could actually go take care of the legal mess. 

He leaned back against the wall as the kid brought the snowglobe up to the counter and Pacifica rang him up. She accepted the payment of crumpled bills and sticky coins with only a slight curl of her lip. After a brief duck under the counter, she gave the kid a bag, a question-mark sticker, and a little wave of her fingers before he ran out the door to his parents’ car. 

“That the last customer?” 

Dipper glanced at the museum entrance, where Stan was watching the screen door rattle. He crossed his ankles and leaned against the door frame, removing his fez and carding a hand through his hair.

At Dipper’s confirmation, Stan jerked his thumb at the  _ employees only _ door. “You two go get ready to go, then. I’ll tell Soos we’re leaving so he can lock up the place.”

Surprised but not complaining at the unusual display of magnanimity, Dipper headed through the door, holding it for Pacifica as she followed him. She gave a light “Thank you” as she passed, heading for the stairs. “What time did Cramm say we had to be there for warmups?” She paused as she reached the landing and leaned on the banister, watching Dipper taking the steps two at a time. 

“Four fifteen,” Dipper answered. “Boys race starts at five.”

Pacifica nodded. She wasn’t really looking at him. Something was off. 

“Hey, um. I get that it’s a lot,” he started. “Everything. Are you okay?”

Her eyes widened, and she backed up a step. “What? I’m fine.”

Dipper barely caught his scoff, giving her a shrewd look instead, but she brushed past him to climb the rest of the stairs. Stan and Dipper had agreed that the attic would work well for her. It was alone on the floor to give her some privacy, and besides, no one had lived in it for years. Dipper had moved into an empty lab room on the second floor shortly after Mabel went through the portal. He’d felt a little silly asking to do so, but Stan had seemed to understand the pain of being in her living space without her there. 

Dipper stood there at the bottom of the stairs for a minute more, concerned at her obvious discomfort, but he went to his room and got ready for the race despite that. If Pacifica wanted to talk, she would. She was no Mabel—she was never so attuned to her own emotions, or too much of a romantic—but she’d talk when she needed to. 

By the time he’d changed into his uniform, tugged his sweats over it, and went downstairs, Pacifica was ready, too, perched on the counter and swinging her socked heels against it. Her track bag was sitting on the floor and she had two water bottles next to her, already frosting with condensation. 

“Where’s Stan?” Dipper asked, taking one of the bottles off of the counter and cracking it open.

“Hey, that wasn’t for you,” Pacifica protested, though her grin said otherwise. “He wanted to show some team spirit.”

“Oh, no,” Dipper said. 

This time, her protest was real. “He cares. It’s nice. Mom and Dad never came to any of my races, they’d just see if I won on the local news the next morning.”

Dipper frowned. “I’m just joking,” he said. 

Pacifica crossed her arms. “Be funnier next time.”

“You know I love Stan,” Dipper pressed. “And Stan knows! But the grumbling about the cheering, it’s—it’s a rite of passage.”

That got a quirk in the corner of her mouth. “Maybe,” she conceded. 

“And honestly,” Dipper said, rounding the counter to sit next to her. “I’m amazed he comes to all the races. Freshman year he made me pick a sport, and I think he was hoping I’d choose football.”

Pacifica snorted. “You? Football? A kicker, maybe.”

“Right, that’s what I said! But it took a couple of weeks for him to warm up to the running.”

“And then you had to do track instead of soccer in the spring.”

“Yeah, just rubbed salt right in the wound.” 

Pacifica took a swig of her water, and as she screwed the cap back on, the door opened. “Alright, you two speedsters ready to go kick some scrawny middle Oregon butt?”

Dipper got up from the counter, switching his bag to his other shoulder as Stan spun the Diablo’s keys around his fingers. He had traded his Mr. Mystery suit for jeans and a dark green hoodie, emblazoned in yellow with the high school’s mascot (beaver) and the sport in question (XC). On the back, it had the usual cheesy line about how  _ if you can read this, we’re just warming up.  _ Last month at a parent meeting before ordering the hoodies, Cramm had asked for possible taglines, and while she hadn’t been impressed with Dipper’s suggestion of  _ We like it long, hard, and in the woods,  _ Stan had given him a high five for it. 

“Can I drive, Grunkle Stan?” Dipper asked. 

Stan squinted, then shrugged, tossing the keys up. “If you get muddy on the course, you’re coming home in the trunk.”

Dipper grinned, snatching them out of the air. “The hoodie looks good on you.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Pacifica, could you give us a minute?”

Pacifica glanced between them, hopping off the countertop. “Yeah, no problem,” she said, though she gave Dipper a confused look before slipping out of the door. 

Stan waited for the door to shut behind her before fixing Dipper with a look. “Race starts at five, right?”

“Right,” Dipper said cautiously. 

“McGucket’s gonna be here at six forty five,” Stan said. “Said he had a part to plug in that might bump the count to twenty-two hours instead of eighteen, but it’ll make the whole thing more stable. Less gravitational anomalies. We’re turning it on tonight. If it all pans out right, you two are gonna get home from school before the timer runs out.”

Dipper frowned. Stan was going to make him go to school? He opened his mouth to protest, but Stan was already talking, listing off on his fingers. 

“Me, you, Soos, Wendy, McGucket, Pacifica, McGucket’s kid,” he said, folding his index finger and thumb in. “That’s seven. Six more people in this town than were  _ ever  _ supposed to know what’s in the basement. Kid, we can’t risk someone turning up looking for you, not when we’re this close. Everything has to happen just like normal.”

Dipper’s mouth shut with a sharp click of his teeth. “I have to be here when they come through,” he said lamely. 

“You will be,” Stan promised. “C’mon. We got a race to get you to.”

>>>>>•<<<<<

_ May 27, 2013 _

Memorial Day was supposed to be sweet, Dipper thought. Last Memorial Day had been fun; Mom and Dad had taken him and Mabel to Grandpa Shermie’s. They’d played in the pool, and Grandpa had told them a bit about his brother Stanford’s fun tourist trap in Oregon, where they’d be headed in just a few months. 

Dipper grimaced at the memory. To his right, perched on the cooler on the rooftop, Wendy glanced at him. “Are you alright, man?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, shaking his head. “Just thinking.”

“What, that Northwest brat giving you trouble at school again?” Wendy asked, kicking her heels out and putting her elbows on her knees. “I won’t hesitate to punch an eighth grader.” Her tone went steely. “They’re too ruthless to be left alive.”

“No, it’s not that. She’s just a jerk, don’t worry about her,” Dipper said blankly. At Wendy’s curious silence, he added, “I was thinking about Mabel, that’s all.”

Wendy didn’t reply to that, just nodded. Dipper stared blankly at the tops of the pine trees, painted with sun. After a while, Wendy said, “You know, it gets better.”

“What?”

“Her,” Wendy said. “Being gone. Time helps. I used to think I’d never stop thinking about my mom, but… y’know, life keeps going.”

“You think I’m gonna forget about her? You know what, no, don’t answer that,” Dipper said, holding up a hand to Wendy. “It’s not the same. Mabel’s missing, she’s not—you know.” The word hung in the air, so tangible he had to resist the urge to swat it away. 

Wendy’s face contorted in sympathy. “Oh, Dipper,” she said, in that careful way people talk when they’re trying not to imply you’re as dumb as a bag of rocks. “I know it’s hard to hear, but...“ she trailed off, looking at the woods. “Mabel couldn’t survive on her own out there. Not this long.”

So many thoughts ran through Dipper’s head at once that he had to press a palm to his forehead to process them.  _ She did survive. She’s not out there. I don’t think she’s alone. _

Wendy’s voice turned panicky. “Hey, are you okay, dude?”

“I’m fine,” he said again. “I… Stan’s still gone, right?”

“Huh?” 

Dipper stood up and peered around the Shack. Sure enough, the Diablo was nowhere to be seen. Nerves exploded in his stomach. “I want to show you something,” he said, not looking at Wendy. “But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“Oh, dude, what are we looking at?”

Dipper jumped as Soos’s voice rang up from the porch below them. Wendy glanced at him, and her question was clear—she was willing to lie to shake Soos. Would she be mad that he already knew?

“Soos, just hang on a second. We’re coming down,” Dipper called. When he glanced back at Wendy, she gave a little nod, half grim and half pleased. 

Two minutes later, they gathered in the gift shop, and Dipper paced in front of the vending machine as Soos locked the door. 

“Okay, dude. Ain’t  _ nobody  _ getting in here,” Soos said, returning his keyring to his belt and looking expectantly at Dipper. “You gonna show her?”

“Wait, he knows whatever this is?” Wendy asked, surprised. She didn’t sound angry, but Dipper flinched at the hurt in her voice. “What, you didn’t trust me?”

“Let him explain,” Soos said. 

Wendy glanced at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought we were bros!”

“Hey,” Soos said sternly. “I  _ never _ want to hear you doubt our bro-dom. But… Dipper, does Mr. Pines know you’re showing her?”

In response, Dipper turned on his heel and punched the combination into the machine. It hissed and swung forward, just like it did every night. 

“Whoa, secret passage,” Wendy breathed. Then she tensed. “This isn’t gonna be anything like the Shapeshifter’s bunker, is it?”

“Come on, inside,” Dipper said in lieu of an answer, ushering them down the stairs and shutting the machine behind them. Wendy went down the stairs carefully, taking in the greenish light, the chipping paint. 

“Stan moved to Gravity Falls a little over thirty years ago,” Dipper started, capturing Wendy’s attention while Soos pushed the proper buttons for the elevator. 

“Yeah,” Wendy said, a little annoyed. “Grandpa built him the Shack and everything. I know.”

“No,” Dipper said. “Your grandpa built the Shack for Stanford Pines.”

Wendy glanced at Soos over Dipper’s shoulder. “Is he okay?”

Soos shrugged evenly as the elevator opened. “It’s a long story, dude.”

“The guy you work for is Stan _ ley _ Pines,” Dipper said, leading the way inside. “Twins run in our family, I guess.” He frowned at the buttons before hitting 3. 

“I have two great-uncles. They’re twins. Great-Uncle Stanford moved here in ‘76 and set up this lab to research all the weirdness in this town. Grunkle  _ Stan  _ left home and started fending for himself when he was seventeen.”

He looked at Wendy expectantly, and she, newly seventeen herself, looked uncomfortable. “Wow. I… I didn’t know.” 

Dipper continued. “Stanford called him here for help in winter of ‘82, but they got in a fight, and Stanford went missing.”

“Dipper. Dude. You’re scaring me.” 

That made Dipper really look at her. Sure enough, she was glancing around the elevator like she was looking for an escape hatch, inching away from both him and Soos. 

She fixed him with a look. “Tell me no one killed anyone.”

“No! No, no no,” Dipper yelped. “But—remember how I said Great-Uncle Stanford came here to research weird stuff?”

“Yeah…?”

“He got  _ weird _ weird. He got tricked by a demon from another dimension and built a portal to its home. He learned it was evil and tried to shut the whole thing down, but when he and Stan got in a fight, it turned on, and he got sucked through.”

The elevator doors opened, and Dipper led the way through the observation room. None of this was news to Soos—he was down here a couple of times a week to help fix odd portal pieces, but most of the construction was beyond even his expertise. 

He opened the door to the lab floor. Spread all across the room was the dismantled portal. Dipper had wondered why Stan’s first reaction to the crumpling of the portal was to take everything apart, but apparently, Stan had learned over the years that the technology was extremely delicate, and a lot of things would need to be replaced. They were almost done running diagnostics and taking note of what they needed to get more of. 

Dipper’s voice escaped him. Instead of explaining that  _ this was it,  _ all he could do was shoo a spider off of a loose coil. 

“Last summer, Mr. Pines got it running,” Soos supplied. “He gave me instructions to protect the vending machine, but the kids told me that the world might be ending because of whatever Mr. Pines was doing down here, so we came down. When the portal thingy turned on…”

“Mabel went through,” Wendy finished in a hushed whisper. “Holy  _ shit _ , Dipper, I had no idea.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” he shrugged. 

Wendy looked around, taking in the bits of metal strewn about the room in organized chaos. “What about your journal? Does it have anything that helps with this kind of thing?”

Dipper blinked. “Oh, I didn’t say—Stanford wrote the journals. They have the instructions for the portal. Stan never had all three until last summer.”

Wendy’s eyes went wide. Nearly comically, she looked at Soos, who nodded sagely in confirmation. Eyebrows knitting, she looked back at Dipper. “So you think that wherever she is, she’s alive?”

Dipper’s eyes lingered on the window to the observation room, where the three journals sat nestled in the desk. “Most everything in the journals ends in this dimension,” he said. “We don’t know for sure. But Stan’s talked about this instinct he’s got. I don’t know how to describe it, exactly, but it’s just this  _ feeling  _ that his brother’s still out there. And it took me a little while, but I’m starting to get what he means. I think if she died, I would know.”

“Also,” Soos supplied helpfully, “All things considered, I like to think that Mabel found the other Mr. Pines and they’re having space adventures as we speak.”

He spread his arms winningly, but Dipper didn’t smile at that, and he was grateful to see that Wendy didn’t, either. 

“What can I do?” She asked, dead serious. 

“I—I don’t know,” Dipper said. “I mean, we’re in here every night, and you can’t come down here… I don’t know. Stay my friend?”

“Dude. That’s a given.” To her immense credit, she looked almost offended at the suggestion that she wouldn’t. “But we should probably go back upstairs before your uncle gets back.”

>>>>>•<<<<<

_ 2016 _

The race wasn’t anything special. Any hopes Dipper had harbored of performing well went out the window at Stan’s moodkiller in the gift shop. The weather had been nice—bright, warm, not too windy—but his head was back in the basement, rolling over equations and construction and quantities of fuel. His run was even more disturbed when he got spiked in the calf by a runner from Portsmouth somewhere in the second mile.  _ At least I’m not thinking about the portal anymore _ , he thought, idly considering how long it would take to scrub the blood out of the heel of his shoe. 

The course wound through some of the non-magical woods, and up and down a couple of naked slopes. It was familiar. He’d been running the home course for years now. Still, that didn’t stop him from finishing nearly a full minute slower than his PR, didn’t stop his coach from giving him a disappointed shake of her head and sympathetic clap on the back. Dipper accepted a cup of water from a race volunteer and wandered through the crowd to find Stan. He just wanted to grab Pacifica and go home. 

And there he was, green hoodie one of several clustered together by the finish line as the rest of the male runners started rushing over the line. Dipper ducked past parents and teenagers to stand next to his uncle.

“Eighteen, huh?” Stan said sympathetically.

Dipper nodded. “Not great. My head wasn’t in it.”

Stan shrugged, throwing a light elbow into Dipper’s side. “Meh, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, kid. Let me tell you, these meets would be a lot more boring if you beat your record every time. Where’s the fun in that?”

Dipper snorted as Stan looked back at the runners. “Still, Coach isn’t happy.”

“Yeah, well, that’s your problem,” Stan huffed. He put his hands into the pocket of the hoodie, craning his neck to peer at the last of the male runners. “Girls are showing up.”

“Do you see her?” Dipper asked. He got onto his toes, trying to spot Pacifica’s blonde hair and green uniform, but as soon as he did, he was reminded of the cuts in his calf and hissed, grabbing Stan’s shoulder for balance.

“Yeah, she’s in third—whoa, you alright?” Stan asked, alarmed, as Dipper lifted his foot off of the ground to inspect the damage．

“Yeah, it just stings,” he reported, gingerly setting it back down on the ground and testing weight on it. True to his assessment, it stung like hell, but it wasn’t unbearable.

Stan huffed. “Well, we’ll fix it up when we get home. The last thing we need right now is you getting an infection.”

Dipper barely concealed a fond smile as Stan rolled his shoulder but made no real attempt to shake Dipper off of him. “Admitting that you’re gonna patch me up? You’re going soft, old timer.”

“Am not!” Stan protested immediately. “I just can’t deal with your whining, and I’m definitely not cleaning up any pus. Infections are nasty.”

“Mmhmm, sure.” 

“Look, Trust Fundica’s coming in hot,” Stan said quickly, whipping out his favorite and most overused nickname for Pacifica, though he didn’t say it when she could hear it anymore. She’d gotten so fed up with the nickname that every time Stan wandered into the gift shop during her shift and referred to her by it, she would blatantly talk a customer out of making a purchase in retaliation. Instead of firing her like a normal boss, Stan had respected the fight. He really did care, though, Dipper thought, watching Stan raise his voice and yell “Get her, kid, go for silver!”

“Go, Pacifica, you’ve almost got it!” Dipper shouted, watching as the girl in question grit her teeth and speed up her sprinting. She passed the runner in front of her just as they crossed the line, and even though she was panting hard enough that Dipper thought she might throw up, it was impossible to miss the proud smile on her face.

After high-fiving a sweaty and extremely pleased Northwest, glaring at a certain Portsmouth runner, and standing around waiting for Cramm to let them go, it was still only half past six by the time the Mystery Shack came into view. Stan shut the headlights off, twisting in his seat to unbuckle, and said, “Okay, game plan. You—“ and he looked pointedly at Pacifica in the passenger’s seat for emphasis “—can hang out in the shop until McGucket gets here. Let him into the basement, don’t follow him, you know the drill. I’m gonna make sure  _ his— _ “ and here, he jerked his head at Dipper “—leg isn’t gonna fall off, and then I’ll be down.”

“Stan, I’m really fine, it’s just a scrape. You can wait for McGucket, it’s fine.”

Stan narrowed his eyes. “Are you actually going to use the rubbing alcohol, or are you gonna wuss out and just use Neosporin again?”

Even Pacifica’s carefully controlled face cracked at that, and she laughed out loud. Dipper glared at her, and she pursed her lips together, but her eyes were still teasing. “I’ll make sure he gets it cleaned right,” she promised, opening her door and hopping out of the car. She walked around the outside to where Dipper sat, and then she was opening his door, too, palm outstretched. “Let’s go, cripple.”

“Oh, come on, don’t you think that’s overkill?” Dipper said, sliding along the seat to set his feet on the ground and stand up. He immediately fell—why had his leg gone all stiff in the car?—and he didn’t have to see her face to know that Pacifica was grinning from where she’d caught him and slung his arm over her shoulders. The effect was nearly comical, considering how much shorter she was than him, but he appreciated the support nonetheless as she steered them towards the porch.

Although it was fun to drag his feet and stumble along beside her, Dipper pushed off of her good-naturedly after a couple of steps. “My leg fell asleep in the car.”

“Uh-huh, sure it did.”

“I’m entirely capable of dealing with this.”

“Yeah, but there’s nothing better to do tonight,” Pacifica reasoned. “Besides, Stan’s right, you do wuss out on the rubbing alcohol.”

“Neosporin is an antibiotic! Seriously, what’s with you two? It’s a perfectly reasonable substitute.”

“They have to work in tandem!”

When they got to the den, Pacifica instructed him to sit at the table and prop his foot up on a chair while she looked for the stuff. He obliged, mostly because he was touched that she cared this much.

She came back with an ice pack, a cloth, two extra large bandages, the rubbing alcohol, and the tube of antibiotic ointment, and set them down on the table before glancing around. Whatever she was looking for, she found her solution through huffing and picking Dipper’s foot up, sitting in the chair he’d been propping it on and placing his ankle over her knee before rinsing the cloth with alcohol and dabbing gently at the cuts. 

Normally, Dipper wouldn’t have a problem teasing her about her fastidiousness—come on, he also liked to keep an organized living space, but this was ridiculous—but for some reason, he felt like any kind of half-assed joke would puncture whatever bubble this was, where Pacifica didn’t seem to care that he had dried mud on his skin, or that his socked foot was probably smelly, or that blood was kind of gross. The alcohol stung, and his calf twitched a couple of times without him meaning to, but Pacifica didn’t seem to mind. Eventually, though, the sounds of Stan greeting McGucket faded, and the silence got too loud.

“You really didn’t have to,” he said.

Pacifica rolled her eyes. “A thank you would work.”

She wasn’t wrong. “Thanks.”

“Of course.”

Before long, she was slapping the bandages down, standing up, and returning his foot to the chair. She settled the ice pack over the bandages, then stood back, seemingly pleased with her work.

“Paz, that’s nice, but I have to go downstairs,” Dipper said, reaching for the ice pack, but she shook her head, and his hand stopped moving. 

“Nope. Doctor’s orders. You stay, rest and ice and elevate, and all that. I’ll stay, too. We’ve got homework.”

“But, no, I have to go,” Dipper tried again to get up, but this time, Pacifica put her hand down on his shin. Her fingers were cold from holding the ice, and he flinched away from the contact. 

“No, you don’t,” she said, firmer this fine. 

“They need me!”

“From what you’ve told me, Stan got that thing put mostly together on his own using a third of the instructions,” Pacifica said fiercely. “Now he’s got the full set  _ and  _ one of the people who built the thing in the first place, and they’re just doing final touches! What they  _ need  _ is for you to trust them to get this done, and for you to do your work.” Her hands were planted on her hips now and she was glaring at him. 

Dipper short circuited for a moment before managing to articulate, “So you think Stan’s just been humoring me all this time? He needs me! They need me!”

Pacifica groaned. “I’m not saying that they  _ don’t _ need you, but, like, McGucket is crazy smart. They’ll be fine, and Stan wants you to do this stuff first.”

“How do you know what Stan wants?” He felt childish, arguing like this, but she had no right to stick her nose into family business, did she?

“Because I listen when he talks,” she said, as though it should be obvious. “Honestly, you’re both so stubborn, it’s a miracle you managed to work together enough to plug the thing in, let alone get it this far along.”

She sat down on the edge of the tabletop with a heavy sigh. Dipper felt the tiniest bead of guilt, but before he could apologize or move on, Pacifica said, “How much longer do you guys think?”

“Stan says that McGucket can get it on tonight,” Dipper replied.

Pacifica blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. And then it’s just twenty-two hours.”

“Wow,” Pacifica breathed. “Are you ready?”

Dipper dropped his head back against the wooden chair. “I don’t know.” He glanced down his nose at her, but she was just watching, waiting for him to continue. This was what he meant; she was miserable with her own emotions, but a damn sleuth when it came to getting to the bottom of other people. “I think… I’m kind of… no, it’s stupid.”

“What?” She prompted.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “What if Mabel comes through and I don’t recognize her anymore? We always so similar when we were kids, but we’re not identical twins, and it’s such a dumb thing to worry over. But I am. Worried, I mean.”

For a second, her eyes flashed with sympathy, but she blinked quickly and looked away, wrangling her expression back to neutrality. She focused on the wall across the room, a small crease forming in her forehead as she thought, and Dipper wondered what she’d say. Not anything comforting, he knew that much, but it still was out of left field when she said, “My mom got a nose job when I was eight.”

“What?”

She glanced at him without moving her head. “I have a point.”

He squinted skeptically, then nodded for her to continue.

“Nobody  _ told  _ me she was gonna get her face changed. She just said she was going on a business trip, that she’d be in Nevada for a week or two. It wasn’t like anything changed in my day to day, besides the au pair being able to breathe for once, but when she got back, I freaked. She didn’t even look like herself. But then she started snapping at the butlers to bring her bags upstairs, and I knew she hadn’t changed.”

“That’s touching, Paz.”

She huffed, shifting her hips on the tabletop. Dipper tried not to stare. “My  _ point  _ is, yeah, she probably isn’t gonna look like she did when you were twelve, because she’s not twelve. Puberty hit you like a truck, didn’t it? For her sake, I  _ hope _ she didn’t get your ugly mug.” She landed a light kick at his good knee. “But just because she’ll have grown up doesn’t mean she won’t be herself.”

Dipper met Pacifica’s gaze for a minute, and she calmly looked away. He was grateful for that, because he was definitely getting choked up. She kept her eyes turned towards the wall across the room as Dipper rubbed furiously at his eyes. “Yeah,” he said after clearing his throat. “I guess you’re right.”

“Duh.” She glanced at him, then hopped off of the table. “I’m getting our stuff. Hang tight.”

“Yes, sir,” Dipper said dryly, watching her make for the stairs. 

>>>>>•<<<<<

Dipper woke up groggily, face pressed against an open textbook, to the sound of voices and a big hand on his back. “Come on, kid, go to bed.”

Mustering every available drop of his superior intellect, Dipper said, “Hnng?” 

Stan chuckled, and Dipper blinked several times as he sat up straight. The clock on the wall said that it was nearly quarter past two in the morning. Pacifica was asleep across the table, with her head resting on her crossed arms. Dipper frowned at the advanced calculus book in front of him (he knew he shouldn’t have skimped on his senior year, but he figured he deserved  _ one  _ easy class) before he remembered why Stan would be up so late, and suddenly, he wasn’t sleepy anymore.

“The portal,” he said, looking at Stan fast enough to get a crick in his neck. “McGucket. Did you—?”

Stan nodded, almost grim. “It’s counting down now.” He lifted his wrist to show Dipper a stopwatch, glowing blue with a count that read 21:49:12. 11. 10. 

Dipper rubbed at his eyes, squinting at the numbers, before stretching to take the ice pack (now room-temperature and malleable) off of his leg and standing up, reaching for his phone in his backpack. His calf was sore, but other than that, whatever Pacifica had done had worked. Without a word, he opened his timer app and took Stan’s wrist, setting a matching count. His thumb shook slightly as he pressed the green start, and the numbers started to tick down in tandem with Stan’s watch. 

“Go to bed,” Stan repeated. 

“They’re gonna get here tonight,” Dipper said. Stan gave him a look that was probably intended to be both proud and condescending in a ‘No shit, Sherlock’ kind of way, but instead, he just looked nervous. 

Dipper continued, “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to go to sleep.”

Stan huffed. “Well, I tried. Want a drink?”

Dipper nodded, and Stan wandered into the kitchen. Dipper wasn’t entirely sure whether he would return with cola or beer, but he’d reached a point where either would do the trick. He could hear Stan’s soft clinking in the other room, but for now, he just let his eyes drift to where Pacifica was sleeping on her arms. Dipper rubbed at his cheek, still red from where it had been smushed against his textbook, then rounded the table and slowly pulled her chair out. He knew she was a heavy sleeper, but he was still careful as he picked her up at the knees and back and brought her over to the armchair. When he set her down on the yellow cushions, she wrinkled up her nose, and for a second Dipper panicked at having woken her up, but then she just shrugged her shoulders against the armrest and curled in on herself. Dipper tugged the blanket off of the back and laid it over her. Then, in what he considered a remarkable display of self-control, he refrained from smoothing her hair out of her face and turned around to see Stan, watching him with a glass bottle, a can, and a raised eyebrow. 

“The table—“ Dipper started, but Stan just shushed him, jerking his head towards the back door. After a brief moment in which Dipper contemplated staying to defend himself before realizing that doing so would wake Pacifica up, he trudged over and headed outside. Stan shuffled past him and made for the couch, and Dipper shut the door quietly behind him—a real feat, considering that those hinges sounded like they were older than Stan. 

The sofa groaned under his weight, and there was a hiss and a crack as Stan popped the Pitt open before wordlessly offering it to Dipper. He accepted, taking a sip and staring out into the dark woods. The bubbles burned his nose. There was another pop, Stan’s beer this time, and then just contemplative silence.

It had been a while since Dipper had designated these quiet moments with Stan as ‘uncomfortable’. When he’d been younger, it had felt like any time he wanted a moment of peace and noiselessness, Stan or Mabel (or sometimes both) had decided that nothing in the world was more important at that exact moment than to make as much ruckus as humanly possible. Since Mabel had left, though, it seemed like Stan was more willing to be pensieve. Or maybe Dipper had just never seen this side of him until he himself was invested in the portal’s progress. 

Dipper looked at Stan, a thought coming to the front of his mind. “You’ve done this before,” he said. “The waiting.”

Stan glanced at him. He seemed almost surprised by the comment. “Yeah. Not sure last time counts, though.”

“I mean, it has to, at least a little bit,” Dipper argued. “You went through this, this… anticipation.” He gestured at them, at the woods, at the ground. “And now we’re supposed to wait until midnight?”

Stan let out a soft chuckle, but didn’t say anything. He kept his eyes on the grass, taking a swig of his beer. “There’s no way I can get you to stay upstairs through all of this?”

Dipper blinked, alarmed at the suggestion, but Stan was already smiling dryly into his drink and shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Dipper looked back at the can in his hands, sifting through his racing thoughts as he traced the lip of the metal with his thumb. Every time he thought he had a grip on his words, they slipped away. Feeble. Wrong. 

“What’s on your mind, kid?” Stan probed. 

“When we lost Mabel,” Dipper said, frowning harder at the soda tab. “I was really mad at you, for a really long time.”

“I know.”

“And even though I  _ knew _ , logically, I don’t—I don’t think I processed that you lost her, too. You lost both of them. And then Mom and Dad, and Grandpa...”

Dipper trailed off and risked a glance at Stan. He had his eyes trained on the woods, brow furrowed. One hand scratched at the nape of his neck, and he cleared his throat before saying, “What about ‘em?”

“I shut down,” Dipper said. “You could have, and I wouldn’t even be able to blame you, but you didn’t. Thank you.”

Stan swallowed stiffly, and Dipper focused more intently on his can. He heard a rustle, felt Stan’s arm lift as his hand went to his face, but Dipper didn’t look at him, just stood up. 

“I’m gonna go to bed,” he told Stan’s slippered feet. “Don’t know if I’m gonna be able to sleep, but I’ll try, anyway. Don’t stay out here too long, alright?”

The couch whined as Stan stood up. His eyes were red, and his mouth drawn tightly, and he inhaled sharply before saying, “You’re a good kid.” 

Dipper smiled weakly, and Stan drew him in for an abrupt hug. He felt Stan pat his shoulder twice before pushing him towards the door and sinking back onto the couch.

Dipper shut the door behind him, turned off the lights in the living room (Pacifica was now snoring), and checked his phone as he went upstairs.

21:30:37.

21:30:36.

21:30:35.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone! i'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! less than a day until the portal turns on :) also, if you want to listen to me whine about writing throughout the week, i started a blog (scobblelotcher.tumblr.com). see you next sunday!


	7. The Interdimensional Travel Slogs Steadily Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A past acquaintance emerges to singlehandedly progress the timeline. Ford's POV.

_ October 17, 2016 _

By the time they left the caves, the breach to BB-) had sealed for the night. Ford would honestly have preferred to return to the caves to wait for the opening, just a few meters inside, but he didn’t want to subject Mabel to that for any longer than he had to. So instead, they found a winding tree, climbed into the forking branches, and strapped in for a tense night.

The sounds of the jungle were as faint as they were soothing (which is to say, Ford was both deafened and on edge). Despite the noise and her apparent fear, Mabel was asleep in minutes. He envied her ability to sleep anywhere—he’d never been good at ordering his racing thoughts to take a sideline. He took out his journal and flashlight and started to sketch some of the plant life, since he wasn’t sleeping. Sooner than he’d expected, the sun began to rise, and Mabel with it. There wasn’t much to do beyond stay in the tree and wait for the breach, so with Mabel conscious, Ford dozed off.

Too soon, Mabel was reaching an arm around the tree to shake his shoulder, and after abruptly remembering his surroundings, Ford recognized the bluish halo of an open breach. “Masks up,” he said, unbelting himself from the tree. He pulled his cloth up over his nose and fished in his bag to secure his goggles over them. He could hear Mabel doing the same. Despite its large size and relative diversity, BB-) was still less than friendly to humans, so they’d need to lay low. Ford started picking his way down the tree, sticking close to the trunk and avoiding the thinner branches. 

He damn near fell backwards off of one when Mabel’s face appeared, upside down, not three feet away. 

Whatever expression he’d made, she found highly amusing, because she laughed as she grabbed a neighboring branch and released the one she was hanging from with her knees. She swung with the grace of a gymnast, and when she hit the ground, she stuck the landing. She turned to him with a proud grin and her hands in the air. Then she made a face. “Ow,” she said, flexing the bandaged one.

“Maybe next time you won’t be so quick to show off,” Ford grunted, going down one more branch before sitting on it and pushing off to land on the soil. Even with the soft texture of the dirt, he still felt the impact in his knees. He’d usually just ignore it, because at this point, he felt  _ every _ impact in his knees, but this was just insult to injury. “These are ridiculous,” he grumbled, dusting bark off of himself and gesturing pointedly at the offending joint. “They weren’t designed to work properly past peak reproductive age despite the fact that the species routinely lived past it, and they hurt all the time for no good reason!”

  
“We’ll get you some bionic joints,” Mabel said sympathetically, and he would have bet money that she was flashing a cheeky grin under her mask. “You can finally be the world’s first six fingered cyborg.”

“ _ Our _ world’s, maybe,” Ford scoffed. “I had to fight one on WP+q once when I was in my thirties. Not fun.” He hefted his backpack onto his shoulders, casting one more wary look at the jungle over his shoulder. “Ready to go?” 

Mabel shuddered. “Yes,  _ please. _ ” Her mood this morning had been closer to her usual upbeat attitude, but there was still a noticeable relaxation in her tense posture as they crossed into the dim but clean underground station.

Like the majority of the breaches in this city, the BB-) end had been relocated (a fascinating science, Ford had learned. He’d worked on a relocation crew some years ago and helped to streamline the process in a different dimension, but the technology had clearly spread here as well) to a single massive station, from which travelers could disperse into the dimension in a calm and orderly fashion. Pretending as though they fit in among the cleanly dressed commuters, Ford led the way through the industrial tunnels, weaving through busy commuters until he and Mabel were outside. It was pleasant, sunny, the green sky warm and inviting. A clock outside the station informed him that it was just past midday. Ford made for the curb, raising his hand for a taxi, and within ten seconds, one had pulled up in front of them. 

The driver, a female local with three unblinking black eyes, looked at them in the rearview screen of her transport as they clambered into the back seat. The cab smelled like smoke--not tobacco, they didn’t have tobacco in this dimension--and some kind of fruity wine. Ford sincerely hoped that the alcohol scent was not coming from the driver. “Where to?” She asked, adjusting her screen.

“The nearest inn, please,” Ford said. Mabel glanced at him (he assumed she was surprised that they were springing for a private room rather than a hostel two dimensions in a row), but they would scrounge up some more money somewhere else. Right now, Ford couldn’t deal with the stress of trying to hide their human identity in a crowded dormitory setting.

The driver set off, and Ford sank in his seat, watching the turns and trying to get some kind of bearing. It had been a while since he’d been here. Highly developed areas like this provided all of the benefits of civilization, but with those benefits came significant risk. He glanced at Mabel, who was looking out of her own window. Again, she’d said. I’m not taking that chance  _ again _ .

Not for the first time, Ford wondered what exactly had happened to her when the disastrous dimensional overlap had occurred. A fickle anomaly, an overlap could happen between any dimensions, regardless of whether they actually neighbored one another in the multiverse. When the encroaching dimension receded, it took with it any organism that did not originate in the host dimension. He’d studied them before (he’d been swept up in several over the years) but it had merely been an inconvenience when he’d been alone. When Ford had snapped and announced that he was going back to the room and that she was welcome to go traipsing off across the multiverse in pursuit of a washed-up, dissatisfactory version of home, and then an overlap had promptly yanked her away—well, to say he had been distressed would be an understatement. 

After their reunion last year, Mabel had told him very little about her experiences alone, aside from fond recollections of beings who had shown her kindness. Every time he’d tried to get her to talk, she’d clammed up so tightly that he’d given up trying altogether. When he’d been in college, a degree in cognitive psychology had seemed like a stupid idea, though he couldn’t deny the appeal of learning at least one way to  _ maybe  _ understand people. That said, he’d grudgingly done the bare minimum to pass the psych courses he’d been required to take. He found himself lamenting his apathy towards Adolescent Development 204 now that he actually had a teenager.

Of course, now that he and Mabel were not separated by an overlap or currently in fear of being randomly killed in a hostile jungle environment, Ford’s mind had time to do its favorite thing: triangulate on his biggest problem. The fact that an overlap had pulled Mabel to Bill’s dimension was deeply disturbing, if only for the reason that it wasn’t supposed to be possible. In all his travels, he’d learned that the nightmare realm alone was supposed to be immune to overlaps, due to its relative central position in the multiverse. The only explanation he could think of was that Bill’s reasoning had been correct. The pull from the portal must have been strong enough to cause an artificial overlap that targeted the only two 46’/ humans in the multiverse.

The driver pulled over, and Ford handed her the units she was owed. She dropped them into her receptacle, and the door swung open. 

“Thank you,” he heard Mabel say as he exited the vehicle. “I love your rings, by the way.”

The driver made a pleased sort of hum, told them to have a nice day, and was off. 

Mabel dusted her coat off, looking at Ford. He saw his own reflection in her goggles. “What now?”

“We’ll get a room,” Ford decided. “Then head to the port and see if we can contact Gvalnir. After that, though, I want to get a better look at your hand, and we need to sleep.”

“Do we have time for all that?” Mabel asked. “I mean, I’m not  _ complaining,  _ but I figured you’d be more concerned with Bill than with your REM cycle. Plus, how do we know Gvlanir will even let us crash at her place again?”

“No, this will do,” Ford said, declining to inform her that the ‘we’ in his previous sentence had been his fun little way of saying ‘you’. “If Gvalnir won’t help us, we’ll have to find another dimension to camp in. Either way, we wouldn’t be crashing in her home, we’d be too far from the breach. But at the very least she might be able to help us out with weapons.”

“Weapons?” Mabel echoed, piqued interest evident in the tone of her voice.

“Remember how I told you I helped her get her husband out of a bind some years ago?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s been pretty adamant about keeping up her, ah, self defense capabilities since then.”

Even though he couldn’t see her expression, he could imagine it as Mabel said, “So she’s even cooler than I thought.”

That drew a chuckle out of him. “Come on, let’s get a move on.”

The receptionist didn’t ask any questions beyond whether or not they could pay up front, and soon, Ford and Mabel were back on the street, their non-essential luggage tucked under the beds for safekeeping. The port was only a block or two away, the weather was nice; it was a pleasant walk. 

The port was a small office on the second floor of a business complex. Frankly, Ford had expected it to be much larger, considering the population density and dimensional access that BB-) boasted. What appeared to be two elderly life forms were in line ahead of them, and Ford had learned that octogenarians behave the same in every dimension. They might be waiting a while. Mabel leaned over, goggles bumping into his shoulder. “What’re all the microphones for?”

Ford blinked, looking at her in surprise. “Have I never brought you to a port before?”

Mabel shook her head.

“Well,” he said, “Watch them, there. The sender will record their message on the microphone, the room is soundproof, and then the computer will etch a chip. Then the sender will bring that to the desk and provide the destination and recipient, and then if you’ll look, this is where it gets interesting.”

The clerk accepted the chip from the old alien, punching in whatever the customer had told him. Then he turned around to place the chip in the unassuming black box on the countertop behind him. When he shut the door, the front panel of the box glowed bright blue for three pulses. The clerk handed the customer a smaller black box and called the next customer forward.

“What, so the box glowed?” Mabel asked. “What did it do?”

“The  _ box  _ is a megaparticle transmitter,” Ford practically gushed. “It  _ disassembles  _ the atoms of the chip and sends it to the receiving dimension! Then, when a message matching the particular fingerprint returns to this dimension, the customer will receive the return transmission on the pager.”

Mabel whistled. “Okay, that’s pretty cool. But why don’t they just send letters in the box?”

Ford had to remind himself to inhale. That was blasphemy, what she’d just said. Surely no niece of his could be so criminally underwhelmed by literal teleportation. 

He offered her a chance at redemption. “You’re looking at a fully realized science fiction teleportation device and you want to know why you can’t just send a letter?”

Mabel stuck her nose up. “Letters are  _ awesome. _ Nobody appreciates a nice, handwritten, doodles-in-the-margin letter anymore. Hey, did you ever find that magic mailbox in the woods, back home?”

He had not, but he didn’t want to say so. Unfortunately, his silence was as good as a no, and Mabel knew it. “Well, they didn’t tell me until after, but this one time, Dipper and Soos found this totally normal mailbox that answered questions. Like, you could write a question on a piece of paper, and stick it in and put the flag up, and then the mailbox would answer the question. It was omnipotent.”

Before Ford could rip his focus from what he was going to say to Gvalnir to ponder the implications of this, Mabel was continuing, “But they asked it a bunch of questions, and Dipper was going to ask it who wrote the journals--man,  _ that  _ would have been confusing--but before he could, I stuck a  _ special _ letter to my mom inside it.”

Ford played along with her rejuvenated mood, forcing his tapping fingers to lie still and taking what could not more obviously be his cue. “What made the letter special?”

“I included a video of me sticking a hundred gummy worms up my nose,” Mabel said matter of factly. The elderly alien who had just sent their message gave her an affronted look as they ambled past. Ford watched them shuffle to the elevator, tuning back in as Mabel was saying, “...‘deeply offended it’, or whatever, but also, like, now that I think about it, if the mailbox was omnipotent, it should have known better than to open mail addressed to another person. How difficult would a ‘return to sender’ have been?”

“That’s assuming that the mailbox was familiar with the intricacies and legalities of the postal system,” Ford mused as the clerk waved them into the office. “At any rate, we aren’t sending anything through but the chip, and please refrain from attempting to send anything else. We don’t want to garner any unnecessary attention.”

Mabel muttered something that could have been ‘party pooper’, but followed him anyway, standing at his side and watching as he took the microphone and pressed the button to begin the recording. 

“It’s Ford,” he began.

“And Mabel,” Mabel supplied helpfully. He shooed her away. He was glad she was feeling better, but this was serious. 

“Listen,” he said, ignoring Mabel’s huff of protest. “Something’s going down in your, ah, adjacent dimension. Mabel and I need to be there so I can take care of it. Is there any chance you could help us with supplies? We’d need to camp close to the breach, so it’d just been food and the like.”

“Ask about the weapons,” Mabel whispered.

“And a sample of your armory,” Ford added. “I’m sorry, but you know I wouldn’t ask unless it was crucial. Okay. Goodbye.”

“Bye,” Mabel started, but he had already ended the recording. Mabel crossed her arms. “I can’t believe you didn’t let me talk at all.”

“You can talk to her when we get there,” Ford replied absently. He was focused on the rhythmic humming of the machine as it printed the chip. He could hear Mabel scoff, but he wasn’t too worried. She’d never been one to hold a grudge, especially not over something as petty as this. 

The machine beeped and spat the chip out. Ford made to take it, then sighed, glancing at Mabel. “I don’t suppose you want to hand him the chip?”

“How old do you think I am?” Mabel replied. “Do you really think this pathetic gesture of goodwill will pacify me?”

Ford paused. “Yes?” 

He could see his own masked reflection in her goggles, could see her shoulders sigh with a “Yeah, you’re right”, as she reached out and pinched the chip between the gloved fingers of her left hand. “Let’s just get it sent and go get something real to eat, I’m sick of protein powder.”

“Protein powder has saved your life on many occasions,” Ford said, leading the way to the desk.

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Ford lifted his chin towards the clerk. “Dimension 52, to Gvalnir Neoona.”

The clerk typed something on his computer. “This the one?” He asked in a bored voice, rotating his screen to show Ford an image of what looked to be a government ID with a portrait of Gvalnir on the left half. 

“Yes,” he confirmed. 

The clerk stuck out his hand and opened and closed his fingers in a grabby motion. Mabel reached forward and deposited the chip in his palm without prompting.

Ford 

clasped his hands behind his back and watched closely as the clerk opened the (empty, Ford recognized with relish) transmitter and deposited their message. The box pulsed three times, and the clerk slid a pager across the counter to Mabel. “You know what to do with this?” He asked.

Mabel nodded confidently and handed the pager to Ford. He tucked it into a pocket as Mabel said, “Yep! Consider it done.” 

He had to hand it to her, she had the mental restraint to wait until they were safely back in the room to say, “Okay! What are we supposed to do with it?”

“Once it gives us Gvalnir’s reply, we have to put it in a large-unit MPT,” Ford explained, rolling the pager over his knuckles. “They’re located all over the city—hell, there’s probably one in the hotel.”

“Couldn’t people just steal them?” Mabel asked, pulling a pillow from the head of her bed and hugging it in her lap. “Keep these little dudes for themselves?”

“They explode after seventy two hours of receiving the message.”

“Oh.” Mabel released the pillow, thoughtfully putting it back. “That’s one way to fix that.” She glanced at him. “So, what now?”

Ford scratched at the nape of his neck, biting back a yawn. “I thought we could clean up and go find some food.”

“Sounds good.”

>>>>>•<<<<<

After she’d showered, Ford made Mabel sit down so he could properly inspect her hand. It wasn’t pretty, angry red blisters all along her knuckles and the flesh over her metacarpals, but he didn’t want to risk using a potentially hazardous alien treatment. He’d found many miracle medicines during his time in the multiverse, but for every instant fix, there was a treatment that was decidedly harmful for humans. So he simply replaced the bandages and made her drink a glass of water before they donned their masks and went to pick up something from one of the restaurants they’d passed on the way to the post. The sun was setting now, painting the sky in bright streaks of lime and carmine. They’d barely made it back to the room and sat down to eat when there was a knock on the door.

Ford looked at Mabel, who gave a hurried shrug before diving for her mask and goggles.

“I know you’re human,” came a voice from the hallway. Ford flinched, and he saw Mabel do the same, but then her eyes got huge. “It’s Helmet!” She hissed to Ford, throwing a deep glare at the door.

“Hel—the bounty hunter?”

Mabel nodded, then scrambled off of her bed, rushing the door. Ford swore and stumbled after her, hissing at her to stop, but she’d already wrenched it open. “You!” 

Helmet was as armored as ever, but Ford didn’t have to see their face to read their body language. Their hunched shoulders and frequent glances around didn’t make it seem as though Helmet was about to capture him and Mabel for profit… but if not for work, why were they here? What on earth did a formidable vulture like them have to be so secretive about?

“I have to talk to you,” they began, but Mabel cut them off. 

“We don’t want to talk to you,” she said fiercely. “Go away. Forget you saw us.”

“What do you want?” Ford asked with decidedly less venom.

Mabel whipped to face him, betrayed. “Don’t  _ engage _ them!”

Helmet put their hands up. “I just want to talk!”

“Oh, like we’d believe  _ that _ ,” Mabel sneered. She genuinely looked as though she was ready to sucker punch straight through the hunter’s armor. 

Ford opened his mouth to think out loud— _ everyone stop shouting, we’re going to draw attention—  _ but he was cut off by the loud beeping of the pager. Now thoroughly overwhelmed, he looked between the doorway and the device, his decisionmaking process having to restart with every pulse of noise that the box emitted. “Let them in, Mabel, no more shouting! Sit there, don’t touch anything, just—sit there.”

Mabel’s mouth fell open, and for a second, Ford thought she might slam the door in Helmet’s face anyway, but instead, she grit her teeth and opened it wider, shutting it only after the bounty hunter was perched on the edge of Ford’s bed. She then crossed the room to Ford’s side, glaring daggers at their guest the entire time.

Ford pressed the receiving button on the pager, and Gvalnir’s voice crackled over the speakers. 

“I’ll have what you need, but I’m not happy about it. Get here.” 

There was static, then silence. 

The pager played a pleasant message about returning it before anti-theft protocol deployed, but Ford wasn’t listening. Neither, apparently, was Mabel. 

“Okay, great, she’s down,” Mabel scowled, crossing her arms. “Now can you hear what they have to say so they can get out of here?”

“What’s gotten into you?” Ford asked, glancing at Helmet, who was now staring at the wall in the distinct brand of ‘Oh God, Family Members Are Yelling At Each Other In Front Of Me’ panic. Of all of the bounty hunters Ford had dealt with, Helmet had always been odd. They acted cold and callous most of the time, but once, through a haze of shoppers and dust a crowded bazaar, Ford had spotted them dropping coins into the cups of the needy. Not exactly a typical bounty hunter’s practice. To this day, he didn’t think Helmet knew he had seen them do that, and therefore, he didn’t know what to make of it, other than to  _ consider _ the  _ slim _ possibility that  _ maybe _ they weren’t entirely awful. 

“I don’t trust them, okay? We’re not taking any of their  _ stupid jobs  _ and I don’t care what they have to say!” Mabel made sure to throw her words pointedly, and though Ford couldn’t understand the weight behind them, Helmet reacted.

“I said I was sorry!” They burst, jumping up from the bed. Mabel flinched, hand jerking towards her blaster, but Ford was already between them, barking, “Enough!”

He looked at Helmet. “Is the multiverse as we know it going to implode in the next hour if you don’t tell me what you have to say right this instant?”

Helmet hesitantly shook their head. Ford lowered his hands. “Alright, then. Mabel. What are you talking about? What job?”

Mabel took in a shuddering breath and clammed up, tugging her jacket back over her hip so that her holster was no longer visible. “They sent me on a job that they knew was a suicide mission.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be a suicide mission,” Helmet insisted, and the sincerity in their voice was unmistakable. “I—listen, I just… just look, okay?”

Slowly, they raised their hands to their helmet, and tugged. The metal lifted, and behind it was a pair of refracted ruby eyes and a gleaming set of black pincers.

“You’re one of the AN997 jungle locals?” Ford asked. “I hadn’t realized members of your society were integrating to the greater multiverse yet.”

“Most of us aren’t,” Helmet said, and they sounded saddened by the recollection. “But it’s worse, for me, because I’m… a vegetarian.”

They hung their head in shame, as though they expected ridicule. 

Instead, they got Mabel and verbal assault. 

“Are you  _ kidding _ me?” She seethed. “You sent me into hostile territory for  _ scraps  _ because you were afraid of your friends making fun of you for eating tofu?”

“You don’t understand!” Helmet insisted, distressed. “Vegetarians are not uncommon in the liberals of my species, but in my tribe in particular, vegetarians are, um. Dealt with.”

Ford was certainly taking in visual and auditory stimuli, but the only thought his brain could produce was  _ what? What? What? _

Mabel paused at Helmet’s words. Her brow furrowed, and Ford could see the cogs turning. If Mabel’s outburst had been justified by some prior affront, which it sounded like it was, her empathetic side was winning out now. Early on when she’d joined him, Ford had had to teach her how to be tough, but she’d retained an unusually high and oftentimes inconvenient level of compassion for others. At first, her constant questions about how he and anyone in their immediate surroundings were feeling had annoyed him, but he’d come to appreciate the inquiries, even if he didn’t always answer honestly. 

“That’s why I panicked when I saw that the vipinka had gotten a hold of you,” Helmet continued. “I never meant for you to get hurt.”

Vipinka? What was a vipinka? Ford frowned. Vipinka getting a hold of Mabel in AN997. The creature she’d shot in the cave, perhaps? He snapped to look at her, eyes widening in concern—she’d had to fight that thing on her own?— but Mabel was still focused on Helmet. 

“Why wouldn’t you just tell me that from the start?” She asked finally. “I can understand family issues, everyone has family issues. But you were so mean about it!”

“I had a boss to please and a reputation to maintain,” Helmet said. “But I’m done with that now. I quit yesterday.”

Ford held up a hand. “Okay. Pause. You,” he said, pointing at Mabel, “We’re talking about this later.” 

She nodded meekly.

“And you,” he continued, pointing at the bounty hunter. “Switch tracks. Why did you quit, what did you come to say, and how did you find us?”

“I got a job with a start-up, Bill Cipher put a seven million unit bounty on your heads, and it was pretty easy, I just spotted you on the street—“

“Bill Cipher  _ what?!” _

Helmet paused. “Yeah, I should have started with that one.” They cleared their buggy throat, spreading their hands on their lap. Ford stared at the gloves, and the part of his mind that wasn’t  _ hollering  _ about this new piece of information was wondering what kind of prosthetics the hunter had used to give themself full human hands under their suit.

“But that’s why I quit,” Helmet continued. “Like I said, I. I had a boss, I had people who’d hurt me if I fell behind, but I really felt bad for you two, and I didn’t want to see someone snatch you up. I’ve never known Cipher to put bounties on  _ anyone,  _ let alone  _ humans.  _ What could you do to him to make him hate you so much?”

Mabel inhaled, but Ford flapped his wrist at her. “Old, ah, workplace acquaintances.”

“Any idea what he’s planning?”

_ To take advantage of the combined power of the nightmare I created with foolish pride and my idiot brother’s stupid giant soft spot,  _ Ford thought bitterly. 

“I don’t know, but if it’s Cipher, it can’t be good,” he said instead.

Helmet nodded, frowning. Well, Ford thought they were frowning, it was difficult to tell with the pincers. “It sounds like you guys have to go somewhere,” they said. “I, um, I can leave. But I mean, I just saw you, so I thought I’d say something. Keep your heads down.” They raised their helmet back over their head, making for the door at Ford’s assenting nod.

“Wait,” Mabel said suddenly. “Do you still have that destabilizer? Can you get us to 52 now?”

Helmet paused. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Ford glanced at Mabel, but she was already moving around, gathering up anything that had strayed too far from her pack. “Come on, let’s go,” she said. 

Three minutes, some extra navigational input, and one last insect apology later, Ford was stumbling into the red soil of 52. When he caught his balance, Mabel was kicking at the dust, backlit by the weaving tendrils of breachlight. 

The breach sealed, and the glow of the moon took its rightful place as the sole illuminator of the landscape. Mabel didn’t turn back towards Ford. This in and of itself was not atypical: usually when they crossed through a breach, she didn’t look at him, but it was because she was taking the opportunity to get a good look at whatever world they’d stepped into. The events of the past days had been overwhelming, and Ford had thought she was handling it well, but he worried now that Helmet’s visit (and the reminder of whatever she’d endured) had been the proverbial last straw. “Mabel?”

She shook her head. The light was bright enough that her motion was obvious. 

“I don’t need to know what happened,” Ford said into the still air. Hearing his own words surprised him a little bit, because he preferred to know exactly what was happening at all times whenever possible, but they were true. When he gave it three seconds of thought, he realized that he  _ didn’t _ need a historical account of what had clearly been a traumatic event; he just wanted her to feel better. 

She sniffed. “I know you said not to take bounty jobs,” she said, “But they had a DPS, and they told me the last place someone had spotted you, and I thought—I thought I could find you.” She was crying now, wiping furiously at her eyes. “God, we’re  _ fine,  _ I should be over this by now.”

“We  _ are _ fine. But it’s okay to still be hurt. You know that, don’t you?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Mabel said thickly. “I’m sorry.”

Ford didn’t say anything, just looked at her. Didn’t she realize that of course she was going to be hurt today by events of the past, that it was one of the most essential truths of humanity that some marks took longer to fade? For a moment, he tried to find more words, sifting through them as if they were stars in the sky, and if he could pluck the right ones down and present them to her, she’d understand exactly what it was that he was just shy of articulating. But the stars fell short, and besides, they weren’t Mabel’s first language, anyway.

When he tentatively held out his arms, she didn’t hesitate to wrap hers around his neck and cry into his shoulder. Being the guardian of someone who required more hugs than anyone else he’d ever met in his life, with the possible exception of the plaidypus, Ford had had to adapt quickly, but what could he say? He’d been a fast learner. He rubbed her back and scoffed when she repeated a muffled, “We really don’t have time for this.”

“Bill can wait,” Ford said. “If the portal’s really opening, I don’t think sobbing is the best way for you to go through.”

She snorted at his words, shaking her head slightly and straightening away from him. “Okay. I’m good.”

“You sure?”

Mabel nodded resolutely, stepping backwards. “We just need to get home, and everything will be better.”

Ford reached out to ruffle her hair, earning a smile. “Or, at the very least, our problems will be ten thousand times more manageable. Come on, this way, Gvalnir’s should be just over that hill and into the canyon.”

Mabel set off down the moonlit goat trail, giving Ford plenty of space to think as he followed her down the narrow path. Before Mabel, he wouldn’t have given the fantasy of going home again anything more than a wistful glance, but she had come through just four years ago. If someone had told him thirty years ago that his gateway would reopen, let alone deposit his own flesh and blood at his feet, he’d have checked himself into a mental health facility. 

Thirty-four years. He hadn’t been home in thirty-four years. The stark count stopped him in his tracks.

“Grunkle Ford?” Mabel asked, turning on her heel to see why he’d stopped. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just realizing how close we are to home.”

Mabel gave a sad sort of smile and started back down the path. 

She was definitely real. As real as he was. 

Which meant that the notion that his brother and great-nephew were putting their precious dimension in mortal peril  _ again _ was also real.

_ I have to be ready this time,  _ he told himself sternly, stepping over a loose patch of gravel. If everything Mabel had insisted on over the last four years was accurate (and he had no reason to believe that it wasn’t), Stan had spent the last thirty years as alone and as out of his element as Ford had. They’d certainly have a lot to discuss, but Stan had stayed. He’d worked hard to accomplish total portal functionality. The least Ford could do was actively try to ensure that one, his brother’s life hadn’t been wasted toiling in vain, and two, Mabel got a shot at the life she deserved.

In the basement of the lab he’d departed from more than thirty years ago, a timer started to count back from twenty-two hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m just as eager as you are to get to the portal, I promise, but we’ve got a few more multiverse ends to tie up. Thank you for reading!


	8. Through Thick, Thin, and Theoretically Impossible Feats of Science

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The calm before the storm. All Ford and Mabel can do is wait. Mabel's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! i know this is early, and i know this is short, but i want to make sure the big reunion is as good as possible, so i’m putting this out a little early because i don’t want to leave you with a sunday cliffhanger two weeks in a row. enjoy!

_October 18, 2016_

_15:34:17_

It was morning, and it was go time. 

Gvalnir’s reception of them had been a far cry from the warmth Mabel remembered the last time she’d been in this dimension. Last night, when she’d lifted her fist and knocked on the door, it was opened by a man she didn’t recognize. At first, she thought it might be Gvalnir’s son, but he looked too old for that. Then Ford had said a name, and the man had scowled and ushered them inside, and Mabel assumed this was fine.

The man, evidently, was Polok, the husband Ford and Gvalnir had rescued years ago. He left them in the living room and returned with two backpacks and his wife. Gvalnir touched his arm and said something about the kids, and he huffed and turned back down the hallway. Gvalnir watched him go, and Mabel saw worry in the creases of her face, but then she was glaring back at Ford, barely glancing at Mabel.

“It’s really good to see you again,” Mabel tried.

Gvalnir’s eyes darted towards her, but she didn’t reciprocate, just crossed her arms. “You said it was about next door,” she said brusquely, directing the statement at Ford.

“I did,” Ford said cautiously. 

“You can’t stay here if you’re getting mixed up with all of this again,” Gvalnir said. “The last time you crashed here, I saw his people sniffing around the city. They know you have connections here, and I’m not putting Polok and the kids in the middle of this.”

Mabel winced, unable to beat back the guilt she felt at hearing that. “I’m sorry,” Ford said. “But don’t worry, all we need your help with is supplies. We have to camp close to the breach, anyway.”

“Why?” Gvalnir asked. She looked at Mabel for the first time, a real, studious look. “What are you planning?”

Mabel glanced at Ford. She didn’t mind talking, but she didn’t want to say something she shouldn’t. Ford gave a tiny shrug, so she went ahead with a cautious, “There’s a chance we can go home.”

Gvalnir’s eyes widened and went to Ford, as if to see if he was also surprised by Mabel’s words, but Ford just lifted his chin evenly. 

“Our family didn’t quit on us, so we can’t quit on them,” Mabel said, bolder now that she hadn’t been shut down. “We have to be close enough so that we can sneak in and go through the door before Bill does.”

“How will you know when to enter? The breach is a permanent fixture, what kind of sign could you be waiting for?”

“The doorway is strong enough to artificially induce an overlap,” Ford said. “But I invented these a little while ago, they’ll tell us when it’s time.” He fished his collidascope out of his coat and tossed it to Gvalnir. “Part DPS, part dimensional overlap detector.”

Smug familial pride flashed through Mabel at Gvalnir’s impressed inspection of the device, turning it over in her hands and fiddling with the knobs and buttons. “What do you call it?” 

“Mabel named it,” Ford said, looking at her. Mabel took her cue to say, “It’s a collidascope!”

She grinned for emphasis. Gvalnir’s expression didn’t change. Mabel glanced at Ford, whose theatrical smile was also giving way to confusion. “Collidascope!” Mabel repeated.

Gvalnir held it back out to Ford. “Based on the way she’s saying it, I’m guessing it’s supposed to be some kind of pun, but you both forget that this isn’t your dimension. I’ve got no idea what you’re trying to reference.”

Mabel deflated. Even if she’d had to catch him up on technology, pop culture, and social advancement, Ford was usually good for a classic Earth reference. He was so sharp and so receptive to wordplay that it made Mabel forget that there were some puns that no one else in their immediate surroundings could begin to understand.

“It’s a clever play on a children’s toy,” Ford explained, but the words just sort of hung in the already tense air. 

“Right,” Gvalnir said. “It’s impressive, I guess. So you’re going to, what, camp by the breach until that scope goes off and then roll in guns blazing?”

“We’re actually holding out for a conflict-free resolution,” Mabel said with a rueful smile.

Gvalnir looked at her severely. What this woman had been through to earn a look of such concentrated skepticism, Mabel didn’t want to know. Gvalnir held her arch-browed glare for a full five seconds before lifting her chin. “I don’t ruffle Cipher’s feathers. He never comes out of the Nightmare Realm, I never go in. But I’ve heard how powerful he is in the flesh. Are you certain that whatever you’re planning will work?”

Absolutely not, but Mabel had already cried tonight, and she wasn’t keen on the very real possibility that either she or Ford would be killed when they were within arms reach of home. So instead of voicing that, she said, “Nope!” 

Gvalnir scoffed. “Ford, your child doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation.”

Mabel refused to let the remark bruise her. It had been a long time since an adult thinking she was naive was the worst of her problems. Still, it was nice to hear Ford waspishly say, “She understands plenty. And considering it’s her home on the line, I think she can determine the gravity on her own.”

Gvalnir sighed. “Fine. 

There was a scuffle, and a young man that obviously wasn’t one of Gvalnir’s sons appeared from the hallway that led to the rest of the house. He cast a wary glance at Mabel and Ford, but softened when Gvalnir said, “Are you headed home?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Thank you for having me.”

Gvalnir shook her head. “It’s always a pleasure, Kolov. Be safe on the way.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kolov said again. He shrugged around Ford to exit the house, but Mabel let her head turn to follow him out of the house. The door swung shut behind him, and she looked back at Gvalnir, curious.

“My daughter’s boyfriend,” Gvalnir supplied. “Sweet young man. Another example of why you cannot let my dimension get mixed up in your mess.”

“I doubt Cipher is going to target this place,” Ford said in what was probably supposed to be a soothing voice. “Mabel got snatched up all the way from Quadrant 4 and I doubt he went and waged war after that.”

“But you don’t know?”

Mabel studied her boots’ laces as Ford admitted that no, he didn’t.

Gvalnir toed one of the backpacks in front of her. “These have food, water, and ammunition. Enough to last a week. If you come back in a week, I can give you more, but I don’t think that it’s a good idea.”

Her tone was hard. Something was wrong. This was not the generous woman Mabel had met all those years ago. She looked at Ford for any kind of concern that matched what she was feeling, but he’d just set his jaw. “You said no one had bothered you here yet,” he said.

“I am not having you seen hanging around here if there’s a chance things go south and Cipher’s people come asking around,” Gvalnir said firmly. “You’re my friend, Ford, and I want this to go well for you both, but community loyalty only goes so far and I can’t take that risk. I’m sorry.”

Mabel’s mouth went dry. She’d accepted the possibility that Gvalnir would flat-out refuse to help them, but the idea that she would help them against her better judgement and to the detriment of her family’s safety hadn’t even occurred to her. Again, she looked at Ford.

“If we aren’t in after a week, we’ll move on,” Ford said. “I— the last thing we want is to put you at risk.”

Gvalnir sighed. “There’s a time I would have gone with you.” She picked up the backpacks, her expression steeling. “But it’s time for you to leave. Now.”

Mabel barely caught the backpack as Gvalnir shoved it into her hands, muttering a ‘thank you’ as she slung one strap over her already-burned shoulder. Then Ford was clapping a hand on her shoulder, and as they got to the door, Mabel paused. “Your daughter’s boyfriend,” she said, turning to Gvalnir. “Will he…?”

“Kolov wouldn’t give us up,” Gvalnir said. “He might as well be one of the kids at this point. Don’t come back here, but don’t worry, either. Good luck.”

“Thank you,” Ford said again, and Gvalnir locked the door behind them very quickly, and they made for the breach to 52. 

“I get that she’s scared, but that was kind of...” Mabel trailed off. She didn’t want to insult the woman, but she was scared, too. She was allowed to be offended, wasn’t she?

“No, it was justified,” Ford said in an oddly strained voice. Mabel waited for him to elaborate, but Ford stayed quiet. He didn’t say anything else until they’d reached the breach, and only then to instruct her on where to set up. They’d just eaten in BB-), so they’d stashed the food under a pile of rocks, and done their best to get some sleep.

But now it was morning.

Logically, sitting here, Mabel knew that she shouldn’t get her hopes up. It had taken Stan thirty years the first time, four years the second time—the portal had only turned on a couple of days ago, there was no reason to assume that anything at all would happen today. 

Still, Mabel was unable to suppress the energy bubbling up the longer she and Ford waited. He was scribbling in his journal, glancing around the landscape occasionally before diving back in. At one point, he tucked his book back into his backpack, slung it onto his stomach, and laid down on his sleeping bag.

“Don’t we need to pack up?” Mabel asked, picking at her own blankets.

Ford shook his head. “No need,” he said, raising one forearm to rest it over his eyes. “If nothing happens, we go to sleep again. If the collidascope goes off, we go through, and…” He trailed off, lifting his arm to peer at her. “Well, if we go through, I sincerely doubt we’ll be needing the camping gear again, any way it goes.”

Mabel huffed. “You think too much,” she said (only half teasing), rifling in her bag for her own journal. 

Ford hummed, but otherwise didn’t reply. The only sounds were the lazy desert breeze and the scratch of Mabel’s nib against her journal’s page, and the rustle of paper as she occasionally flipped back to a previous sketch. 

“What are you drawing?”

“Um, the giraffadiles. From the savannah swamps in XL&8?”

“Such an unfortunate biome,” Ford snorted. 

“Yeah, these guys are kind of funky looking,” she admitted, hatching along the front claws. She glanced up to see Ford propping himself up on his elbows, peering at her. He was visibly chewing at the inside of his cheek, so she said, “What are you thinking about?”

“Just that no matter what happens,” he said, and he looked at the collidascope. “If that goes off, if it doesn’t. And whatever we do from there. I’m really proud of you.”

Mabel blinked, and her pen stilled. She stared at her giraffadile. “I know.”

Ford sucked in a breath, then laid back down with a low thump. “Good.”

The day slid by, impossibly slow. Ford’s breathing slowed, and Mabel calmly continued to draw, glancing up every now and then to check the collidascope and to see if anyone was approaching them. It was excruciatingly boring. When she was hungry, she palmed through the backpack Gvalnir had given her and wolfed down a portion. She tucked a couple of Gvalnir’s rations into the pockets of her private pack. The sun was well set and the moon was climbing into the sky before Ford woke. He woke as he usually did, with a start, then groaned when he saw the sky, palming wearily at his face. “What time is it?”

“I dunno, eight, maybe?” Mabel had traded her journal for her knife, tracing patterns in the soil. “You should eat something.”

“Have you?”

“Yeah, a little while ago.”

Ford fumbled for his glasses, sitting up. “You should have said something sooner, I can’t believe I slept that long.”

“It’s okay,” Mabel said, because it was. He needed his sleep, he’d lost plenty since she’d shown up. “I’m gonna try to get some now, though.”

“Yes,” Ford nodded. “Yes, do. How’s your hand?”

“Doing better!” She held it up with a smile. “It barely hurts unless I think about it.”

“Good, good,” Ford said. He was repeating his words, which meant that his head was somewhere else entirely. At least they’d gotten to a point where she was accounted for when he got lost in thought, Mabel reasoned. It had taken them a long time to click when she’d first come through the portal (of course she’d gotten along with him, but he was a complicated person to figure out!), so hearing him care about her wellbeing even on a subconscious level warmed her heart. 

Mabel balled her jacket up under her head and laid down on top of the bag. Even at night, it was too warm to need the extra layer. It took a while to get comfortable on the rocky soil, because as much as she chirped that it just took some getting used to, she really missed a mattress, but eventually she fell asleep, her back to Ford.

>>>>>•<<<<<

It could have been hours or seconds, she really wasn’t at liberty to say, but the next thing she knew, the collidascope was shrieking.

Ford barely needed to shout her name, Mabel was already awake and jumping to her feet. Her knife was still tucked against her calf, her gun on her hip, and she slung her backpack off of the ground, rubbing furiously at her eyes. Before she could say anything, Ford was grabbing her wrist, and they were diving through the breach.

Despite her brief rendezvous in the Nightmare Realm, Mabel still didn’t know how to propel herself around in space. Fortunately, that wasn’t an issue, as Ford barely had time to swear and duck them behind a neighboring breach as Bill’s laughter permeated the void.

The breachlight made it difficult to see, but Mabel peered around it anyway. Ford’s grip was iron on her wrist. Normally, she would protest, but today, she didn’t mind. Bill had his arms spread, gesturing at the steadily whirling portal with joy.

“Now, before we go through,” he said, “I’d like to say a few words.”

“He’s monologuing!” Mabel gasped. “Now’s our chance!”

Ford glanced at Bill, then at the next breach. There were four between them and their ticket home. He looked at Mabel, jerking his head at Bill, then at her hip. She fished for her gun, holding it at the ready.

“If he sees us, I’m not going to stop,” Ford whispered hoarsely. “You’ll have to hold him off.”

She? She would have to hold him off? 

She nodded firmly, readjusting her grip on the handle. She could do that. 

Ford returned her nod with a single sharp dip of his chin, and then he was checking on Bill once more, and then they were darting for the next breach. Mabel had asked Ford before how he had learned to move in this dimension, and he’d explained that he’d been stuck between dimensions for several months when he’d first arrived, and he’d had to figure it out through sheer desperation. Then he’d winked and confided that he’d also read up on some tricks when he’d broken into a classified library in Quadrant 1, and Mabel had decided then and there that he was a special breed of cool.

Mabel checked around this new breach. The demon’s back was still turned, and he had a martini in one hand as he was saying, “Amorphous Shape, you know we couldn’t have pulled this off without your geometric ambiguity! You really are the foil to my equilateral consistency, well done!”

“Clear,” she whispered, and they were off to the second breach. Ford didn’t stop, just dragged her straight to the third. There was one more. One more crack in reality to duck around, and then it was just a wall of white, a whirlpool of home. 

“Clear,” she said again, but then as Ford moved, Mabel glanced back, and saw one of the demons staring right at her.

It opened its mouth and screeched a warning.

“GO, GO, GO!” Mabel shouted, fumbling with her gun. Ford swore again, and Mabel raised the blaster, pointing and firing three times straight through Bill’s back. It was hard to get a good shot when she was being dragged backwards and only had one hand with which to aim, but on the third shot, she heard a sharp “My EYE!” and shifted her attentions the green demon who had raised the alarm. 

The last breach flew past her, but the demon was getting closer. Too close, too close. Shouting, she fired at it again, missing its face by a hair. Behind the adrenaline of Not Getting Caught, she was barely able to register Bill screaming bloody murder. It extended a claw to grab at her ankle; she drew her knees tight to her chest—

She hit the ground. Her wrist was still secure in Ford’s hand, and it was this connection, paired with her sudden reunion with gravity, that caused him to lose his footing as well. Mabel heard him fall, too, and there was a whirl of thunderous wind, a flashing of light. She couldn’t tell whether the world was spinning because they had hit the dirt, or if it really was loose around them.

She scrambled to her feet before ringing in her ears had fully faded, both hands now free to tightly grip her blaster. Ford wasn’t far behind her—in fact, he was quick to shoulder his way in front of her. Mabel glancing over her shoulder, suddenly fearful that the green demon was still on their tail, but all she was met with was a gray expanse of distorted and broken metal, melting away from what had once been a circular opening.

Her gun fell to her side. Limply, she turned to Ford, who was scanning the perimeter and ceiling of the room, and had seemed to draw the same conclusion as her. 

Mabel holstered her weapon, exchanging the worn grip of the gun for Ford’s hand. She looked around the room again, worried that her boys had been knocked over by the force of the portal, but they were nowhere in sight. 

Beside her, Ford’s breath hitched. She glanced at him in alarm to see his jaw set and his eyes fixed on the control room. She followed his gaze. 

And through the large window, Mabel was just able to make out two silhouettes: one, a familiar man, and the other, a scrawny teenager.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you for reading! shoutout to sporadic_osprey and hinatauryusen for consistently leaving the most wonderful comments <3 see you next week!


	9. Here We Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Mabel aren't the only ones with a tense day of waiting. Stan's POV.

_ October 18, 2016 _

_ 16:14:03 _

The rumbling sound of his own car driving off without him behind the wheel was enough to wake Stan up, though it was a common enough occurrence by now that it didn’t send him into a decades-old panic of  _ shit, I’m being robbed!  _ He sat up, pawing for his glasses on his bedside table. He set them on his face, braced his hands on his knees to stand up, and then sighed, his momentum stalling when he spotted the stopwatch, laying face-up, blinking steadily down.

It was going to be another long day.

As much as he would have loved to just stay inside with the portal, secure in the basement to avoid a fiasco like the last activation, the daily dose of walking wallets weren’t going to empty themselves. So he trudged to the kitchen, grabbed his coffee mug out of the cabinet, and set it on the counter. He found himself glancing at his watch every three seconds as he pulled the compost bucket out from under the sink and filled Waddles’s bowl with pellets. Yeesh, he was going to go crazy if he kept this up. He’d barely handled it last time, and the stakes were twice as high now. 

He wouldn’t let it go wrong. Not again.

He filled his mug with the coffee, turned off the machine, then headed out to the back porch to share breakfast with what was now a certifiable menagerie. He could hear the snuffles as he kicked the screen door open, the whine of the rusty hinges sharp in the morning stillness. 

“Yeah, yeah, quit whining, I’m coming,” Stan grumbled. He set his coffee down beside the sofa, then picked his way to the bottom of the steps, toeing aside the relentless Gompers and Waddles. 

He really had felt bad about moving the pig outside, especially considering that incident with the pterodactyl, but this time was different. Waddles had grown from the little thing he was in summer of 2012 (probably weighed as much as Stan at this point), and he’d become too destructive by no fault of his own. So once Dipper had done some research and confirmed that a pterodactyl wouldn’t be able to lift a six-foot farm pig, and Soos had built a two-stall animal apartment next to the back porch, Waddles had moved into the great outdoors. A part of Stan had protested the construction of the structure (Waddles was a  _ pig.  _ He’d be fine.) but the rest of him knew that Waddles’s living conditions would be a big concern of Mabel’s upon her return, and he’d rather be able to say he’d raised the swine in the lap of luxury.

The pig in question snuffled at Stan’s knee, making Stan flinch at the cold nose. “I told you I was coming, didn’t I? Eat up, you naked prick.” He set Waddles’s bowl down, shaking a couple of vegetable scraps from the compost bucket in, then tossing the rest at Gompers. A banana peel lodged on the goat’s horn, but he didn’t seem to mind.

His zoo fed, Stan retreated to the sofa to enjoy his coffee in peace. That plan backfired, because the minute he sat down, he thought about the last morning he’d spent waiting for this portal to start up. Illegal fireworks with the kids. How about that. 

Waddles squealed, resting his chin on the porch and snuffling inquisitively up at Stan.

“Hey, hold tight,” Stan said, rolling his shoulders against the grimy sofa and sipping his coffee. “If it all works, you’re gonna see Mabel tomorrow.”

Waddles’s ears perked, and he oinked. Either the pig was smarter than Stan had given him credit for, or he just wanted more pellets. 

He raised his mug for another drink, but was met with cold ceramic. He inspected the mug with a grunt of dissatisfaction, then stood up. “Time to make the donuts, huh, boys?”

Waddles stuck his nose back into the mud, searching for any missed food. Behind him, Gompers bleated and started eating the grass.

Stan sighed, getting to his feet with a groan. “I really am going nuts.”

By the time he was adjusting his fez in the gift shop mirror, Soos was clocking in. All the years the guy had worked here, Stan didn’t think he’d been late more than twice.

“How was Dipper’s race, Mr. Pines?” 

“Huh?” Stan glanced over his shoulder. “Oh. Kid did fine. Not as well as he wanted, but all things considered, I’m surprised he didn’t run straight off the trail.”

“All things considered?” Soos straightened from under the counter with a fresh box of bumper stickers. “What are we considering?”

Stan cleared his throat, surreptitiously pulling his sleeve back to check the stopwatch. Dammit. It still had time on it. “We got it started. For real this time. It goes off at midnight tonight.”

Soos dropped the box. Bumper stickers flew everywhere, skidding out from the blast zone and lodging themselves under shelves. Stan spotted one slip between the floorboards. Maybe he’d spot it in the lab later.

“Oh, sorry, dude,” Soos said immediately, crouching to pick up the yellow rectangles. Stan rolled his eyes, pulling his sleeve back down over the watch face, but he still bent over and dug a couple out from under the t-shirt racks. Poor form to leave merchandise where it could be stolen, and all.

“But you’re serious?” Soos pressed, leveling a stack of stickers against the counter and sliding them back into the box. “She’s going to come back? Tonight?”

“Both of them, if it works,” Stan said, neatly nestling his stickers on top. He watched Soos straighten the box against the cash register. “I, uh, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it, actually.”

Soos didn’t look up, focused on getting the box of stickers aligned. It was probably better that he was looking at something else, anyway. 

“I wanted to thank you for sticking around,” Stan said haltingly. “Y’know, for Dipper. He told me last night that he thinks I kept it together, can you believe that?” He chuckled, leaning back against the counter on his palms. Now Soos  _ was  _ looking at him, so Stan cleared his throat, focusing on a shelf across the room. “But, uh, you being here, holding down the fort… It helped. Me, I mean, it, uh… you helped me. Kinda kept me grounded, I guess.”

“Mr. Pines,” Soos started. 

Stan shook his head. “This ain’t a feelings-fest, Mabel isn’t back here yet. You did good, I’m saying thank you, don’t make a big deal about it or anything.”

He looked at Soos out of the corner of his eye to see him smile across the room. “Sure thing, Mr. Pines.”

Beyond Soos, Stan spotted motion outside the door, and straightened off of the counter, clapping Soos on the shoulder as he did so. “Look alive, we got tourists.”

>>>>>•<<<<<

Stan was familiar enough with the flow of tourists to know that by two o’clock on a Thursday, there weren’t going to be enough visitors to fill another tour, so he sent Soos home. Or he tried to, anyway. Soos protested, saying that he didn’t want to leave Stan by himself, not today, and he could at least stay until the kids got back. 

Touched (but not about to show it), Stan agreed, and he and Soos spent the afternoon prepping the house for two new tenants, then on the back porch drinking Pitt and playing cards. Come three forty-five, the quiet growl of his car’s engine became audible, and Dipper parked the car in its worn patch of grass next to Soos’s truck. 

“Take tomorrow off, I’m not gonna open,” Stan told Soos, neatly folding the cards back into the box. “I’ll call you in the morning, let you know how, uh, how everything plays out.”

Soos nodded. “Good luck.”

Stan snorted. “Thanks. I’m gonna need it.”

He watched Soos head for his car, giving Dipper and Pacifica fist-bumps as their paths crossed. Dipper asked why he was heading out so early, and Soos gave some nondescript answer about closing up when the tourists dried up. Pacifica, who had put on a fake smile for Soos, was now glowering as she made for the porch.

“Whoa, what’s gotten into you?” Stan asked, glancing at her as she dropped her backpack and sank onto the couch next to him. She crossed her arms, nose wrinkling. 

“I had to present on the wage gap today, and it went about as well as you’d expect,” she said shortly. She gestured at herself. “Northwest and all.”

“What do you want from me, sympathy for growing up rich?” Stan cracked his knuckles absently, watching Soos lean against the bed of his truck, still chatting with Dipper. “People are dicks about the past, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I could fake my own death and assume my twin’s identity,” Pacifica mused. 

He glanced at her. “Ha, ha. You don’t have a twin.”

“That you know of.”

That got a chuckle out of him. It still made his skin crawl that so many people knew about Ford, the portal, everything, but this kid particular had been a hell of a hurtle to get over, which made it kind of ironic that she was now the only person besides Dipper who was able to talk about the portal matter-of-factly. Soos had a tendency to get all sympathetic, McGucket got sidetracked by new memories that’d hit him with no warning, and Wendy had hid it well, but the thing terrified her. Speaking of, it had been Wendy who had talked him into taking on a new employee—she was heading to the east coast for school, he’d need another hand. When she’d suggested the Northwest kid, he’d laughed her out of the shop. He liked that, for the most rare occasion of times like today, Pacifica didn’t complain. Or if she did, she didn’t make it anyone else’s problem. If it was a constant thing, Stan wouldn’t have been able to bear it, but it was an isolated enough occurrence that he didn’t mind offering his sage council now.

No, not even Dipper would make a quip like she had. Stan should have been pissed about it, but honestly, it was refreshing. At this point, the opportunity to be blunt about it was a gift. Besides, whether or not any of them would admit it out loud, she was family at this point, and her parents’ abandonment had only cemented it.

“How much longer?” 

He was drawn back to the present, glancing at her, then his watch.  _ 08:10:27.  _ “Too long,” he decided, twisting his wrist to show her the face of it.

Pacifica craned her neck, frowning at the number. “That’s no good.” She looked out to Soos and Dipper. “At least we’ve got homework? Something to focus on.”

“Eh, forget the homework,” Stan said. “Either way it goes, I’m not gonna make him go to school tomorrow, and while I’m not gonna tell you what to do, you also don’t have another ride.”

“Fair enough,” she shrugged. “I could use a sick day.”

“Oh, hey, I wanted to tell you,” Stan remembered, “Me and Soos moved his old bed into the attic today, for Mabel. Figured she’d wanna move back in up there. You got any problems with that?”

“It’s your house,” Pacifica said dismissively. “I can deal with a roommate.”

Soos was driving away now, and Dipper, walking up to the porch, was now in earshot. Stan took the opportunity to say, “I mean, push comes to shove and it doesn’t work, you can always bunk with Dipper.” He raised his eyebrows, spreading his hands winningly. 

Both teens turned beet red. Pacifica picked up her bag and made for the door like her life depended on it. Dipper cleared his throat, and Stan’s chuckle died off as the door shut (rather loudly, in Stan’s opinion). “What?”

“That isn’t funny,” Dipper said.

“That isn‘t funny,” Stan mocked. “I’ve seen how you look at her when you think she isn’t looking, smart guy, you’re not as smooth as you think.”

“Well, you aren’t smooth at all!” Dipper protested. 

“Aren’t you ever gonna make a move?” Stan asked, leaning back on the couch to indicate that Dipper should sit.

Dipper did not sit, crossing his arms even tighter. “I am not talking about this with you.”

Stan looked around dramatically. “Who else are you gonna talk about it with, then, your best friend? Oh, wait, that’s her. Good luck with that.”

Dipper swelled righteously, one finger pointed at Stan, but then he deflated and sat down heavily. “I don’t even know what I’d say,” he said, sounding a little bit like he couldn’t believe he was saying this out loud. “I’m—I want to say something, but I don’t want her to feel like she has to leave here if things become awkward, if she doesn’t feel the same?”

“She isn’t Wendy, you know,” Stan pointed out. “And you two could handle it like adults.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dipper said. “Remind me how you smoothed over awkward situations with women.”

“Easy. Leave the state.”

Dipper groaned. “It’s just… it’s that, but also, I kind of…” He circled his hands in the air, looking for the words. “I feel bad for thinking about her so much.”

Stan felt concern prick at the good time he was having. “How come?” He said, trying to keep his tone casual. Dipper’s words confirmed his fear, though.

“Like I’m a bad brother for wanting to spend more time with her than I do working on the portal.” Dipper’s face was pointed sullenly at the woods, just like last night. Stan thought vaguely that he should start selling tickets to this therapy couch.

Instead of voicing that idea, Stan said, “Kid, you’re not a bad brother for wanting to live your life.”

Dipper glanced at him. “ _ You _ never settled down.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t because of virtue or nothing stupid like that! I was married for an hour in Vegas, and she tried to steal my car. Besides,” he gestured at himself lazily with one hand, “The women of this town just don’t know a stud when one moves into the weird science house in the woods.”

Dipper snorted, but there was no merriment in the forced sound. He wrung his hands. “Sometimes, when we were working on it, I’d get annoyed, and think that there were more important things I should be doing, like studying or something.” His fingers stilled. “How insane is that? That I thought studying was more important than working on getting them back? As soon as I realized what I was thinking, I’d, I’d tell myself to cut it out, but it kept happening.” His voice was high and fast now, his standard freak-out tones.

“Calm down, kiddo,” Stan said. Dipper didn’t deserve this. Stan knew exactly what he meant, but… Moses, Dipper was too young. By the time Ford had gone through the portal, he and Stan both had been twenty-eight. Not exactly old and wise, but not kids, either. During the fall of his senior year, he’d still been living at home in Glass Shard Beach, and his biggest problems had mostly come from knocking over the nerd shit Ford left on the floor when he got up in the middle of the night. And yeah, he was sure there’d been a girl or two, because that’s what was supposed to happen your senior year of high school. It all felt real, but everyone knew that adult life was right around the corner, so they’d better cram as much stupid shit into the next nine months as they could. Stan could see now that when Pa had kicked him out, he’d been old enough to handle it, but not nearly old enough to deserve it. Dipper hadn’t been anywhere near either of those—no one, ever, any age, deserved or could be reasonably expected to handle what they were dealing with.

“You’ve been through a lot,” Stan said. “Lot more than most people ever go through in their whole life. Dipper, by the time I screwed this up, I was at a dead end, and I was out of options. So I manned up and started working. And you, you’ve done so much, but you’ve barely started living. You’re allowed to want a life.” He moved his hand to clap Dipper’s shoulder. “Hey, look at me. Look at me. You deserve a good life.”

Dipper’s leg was bouncing. Stan put his hands on his own knees, standing. “And you’re allowed to. Y’know. ‘Have feelings’.” He dropped his air quotes and his smile. “I won’t push it, but I’m just sayin’, you’re not as far out of your league as you think.”

Dipper nodded at his feet, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and groaned. “Seriously? Eight more hours?”

“Yep,” Stan sighed. “Wanna go watch TV?”

Dipper shook his head. “I think I’m gonna hang out with Waddles for a little bit. Maybe take a nap.”

“Hey, if you can get to sleep, I’ll be impressed.”

>>>>>•<<<<<

_ 00:29:35 _

The evening had passed much the same way the day had: excruciatingly slow. Around five, Dipper and Pacifica had decided to make dinner. Stan had opted to stay in his chair, but it had been amusing to listen to Dipper talk about the secret to good biscuits. Mabel, apparently, had a dedicated notebook for her favorite recipes, and once you cut down the sugar component by 80 percent, her ‘Southern-Style Gravy-Grandma-Time Biscuits’ weren’t half bad. But Dipper wasn’t talking about that, he was talking about nerd shit like baking powder and carbon dioxide release, like the prattling Ford would do in their kitchen in New Jersey before Ma would shut him up with a bite of whatever she was working up. 

He found a Ducktective rerun, and when that was over and the kids were back with biscuits, bacon, and scrambled eggs, he flipped to a Sibling Brothers TV series. There was a brief interlude from the TV when Dipper said how much he’d liked those books when he was younger, and  _ Stan _ had commented that he’d almost killed the Sibling Brothers once, and the kids had pounced for more information.

But now it was eleven-thirty, and there was an ache in Stan’s chest that felt so real he thought he might be having a heart attack. Pacifica stood up.

“I’m gonna go clean up,” she said. Her usual decisiveness had abandoned her, it seemed. “And then I’ll, um, go upstairs, I guess?”

She looked between them—Stan saw Dipper nod.

Pacifica opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else, then closed it. She headed to the kitchen door, then turned back to them, abruptly. “If either of you gets hurt down there, I’m gonna be so pissed, so just… Be smart, okay?”

“You kidding? Smart’s my middle name,” Stan said breezily, waving her off. 

She gave a tiny smile and disappeared into the kitchen. Dipper stood up from the floor and offered Stan his hands, pulling him off of the chair. 

Stan clapped his hands together, then carded one through his hair. “Let’s go.”

>>>>>•<<<<<

Up until the ten second mark, Stan couldn’t say if it looked like last time or not. He hadn’t been there. It certainly looked like the first time, though. 

_ Please, please, please work.  _

At ten seconds, he braced one hand on the desk and the other on Dipper’s shoulder. Dipper, who was gripping the back of his chair hard enough to turn his knuckles white, didn’t seem to mind.

This time, he knew to squeeze his eyes shut for the flash.

_ Please, please, please. _

As soon the backs of his eyelids returned to their usual black, Stan opened his eyes because he had to see, he had to know if they were there.

His fingers tightened on Dipper’s shoulder at the same time that his nephew gasped. The laugh hadn’t even left Stan’s chest before Dipper was shrugging away from his grip, darting through the door towards the two cloaked figures that certainly hadn’t been on the floor a minute ago.

Stan caught it on the second swing, biting back the instinct to bark at Dipper to  _ get back! _ It was off, entirely out of fuel, and that meant it wasn’t dangerous right now. Besides, he didn’t think he could have stopped Dipper if he tried.

To his surprise, Dipper stopped short, a couple of paces away, and Stan wasn’t sure why. Ford (he couldn’t see his face, but it had to be Ford) was standing offset in front of a young woman whose face was also covered. (If it wasn’t Mabel, he was going to kill someone. Maybe Ford. Who knew, at this point.)

But then the girl put her hand on Ford’s elbow, in the same motion using her free hand to hastily holster—shit,  _ that  _ was a gun—her weapon and tug her goggles and mask away from her face and it  _ was  _ her.

Ford’s posture straightened a little bit, looking back at Mabel over the wicked spear slung across his back. Her face was split in a grin that looked big enough to be painful, and for a second, Stan wasn’t able to do anything but smile back. Then Mabel gave a wet laugh, and she was ducking around Ford’s arm, and Dipper’s elbow pressed into Stan’s side as she pulled the both of them into a hug. She was still laughing and crying at the same time, but to be fair, Stan was also definitely crying, so he wasn’t about to give her a hard time for it.

Stan squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his arms around the kids. Too soon, Mabel was wriggling out of the hug, holding them both at arms length and staring between Stan and Dipper with wide eyes. Then, “I never thought I’d miss this creepy old basement but right now, I’d be happy to live here for the rest of my life!”

It was an unexpected greeting, and such a Mabel thought, and maybe he was just giddy, but Stan laughed easily. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but over Mabel’s shoulder, he spotted Ford taking off his own goggles and mask, and the words died in his throat. He wasn’t the frazzled, paranoid Ford that had gone through, but he didn’t look like Stan, either.

Mabel followed his gaze, lighting up even as she wiped gloves hand across her face. “Oh! Oh, oh, Grunkle Ford, you haven’t met Dipper!” She extended her hand to Ford, who took it immediately and allowed her to drag him forward a couple of steps.

Ford said something to Dipper with a real smile on his face, but Stan only vaguely registered the ‘I’ve heard so much about you’. He was standing right there. He was smiling, he was shaking Dipper’s hand. He was here. 

“It’s great to meet you, finally,” Dipper was saying. “I have so many questions for you.”

Ford chuckled. “If your questions are anything like your sister’s, we might be down here all night.  _ Is _ it nighttime here?” He glanced at Mabel ( _ As if she would know,  _ Stan thought dryly), then at Stan. His jaw set slightly, and he inhaled.

Bizarrely, instead of just registering his motion, Stan instead noted the way  _ Mabel _ took in the shift in Ford’s posture. It was impossible to miss. He’d spent enough years reading body language, seeing how grifting duos worked in tandem, to know that she’d noticed. It occurred to Stan that Ford might know Mabel better than he did at this point. That Mabel might know Ford better than Stan did. 

“Why don’t you two get upstairs, huh?” Stan said. “The Shack missed ya.”

“Not as much as I missed it,” Mabel gushed. “I know I just swore my allegiance to this lab but I want to see everything! I’d kill to see the Sas-crotch again.” 

She looked at Ford as if waiting for him to move, but Ford just sighed and released her hand. “Go on with your brother, my dear. We’ll be up in a minute.”

It was Dipper’s turn to grab Mabel’s arm, and the kids fairly sprinted for the door. At the last minute, Mabel called, “No fighting, you two!”, and then she vanished around the corner.

Ford stared after the doorway with a fond yet worried face. Stan cleared his throat. “She’ll be fine, it’s just the house.”

“My house,” Ford said quietly, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

Stan bristled, but Ford held up his hand quickly, wincing. “That… wasn’t constructive. I’m sorry.”

Stan blinked. That was new. 

Ford assumed a straight-shouldered posture, hands clasped behind his back. It was familiar; he’d stood that way since they were children. It had been odd to see a ten-year-old stand like that, like whatever malformed footprint in the sand he was staring at could tell him all the secrets in the universe, but it fit him better now. Ford spoke to the portal, only glancing occasionally at Stan. Stan would have appreciated Ford facing him to speak, but this was also nothing new, and also not a habit Ford was alone in.

“You understand how catastrophic the consequences of your actions could have been. Beyond the damage that they did.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “You can skip the lecture,  _ Ma _ , I don’t need to hear the warnings.”

Ford’s face tightened, nose wrinkled, but he schooled his features and continued as though he hadn’t heard Stan. “You should have left me in there and never even put her at risk.  _ I _ am not worth the universe, and she didn’t—“ Ford cut himself off sharply when his voice started to rise. When he spoke again, his tone was calmer, slower. “From what Mabel’s told me, you’ve had your share of obstacles on this end as well, but you didn’t quit on her.”

Ford was being weird, but the weirdest part was the phrasing of it. ‘Not worth the universe.’ How did he not get it? “I didn’t quit on either of you,” Stan said quietly.

Again, Ford’s face tightened, but he seemed to keep himself drawn. It was incredibly unlike him.

So, in the name of diplomacy, Stan called him out. “What are you doing?”

“What?” Ford said defensively.

Stan gave him a quizzical look, then swelled up his posture in an imitation of Ford’s, hands laced at the small of his back, mimicking his cross expression. “It’s like you’re censoring yourself. It’s unnatural.”

Ford snorted. “Mabel has been extremely adamant about defending you. What I’m  _ doing  _ is trying not to blow up. She’s proved to be an accurate enough judge of character that I believe her, but I’m still angry, at the same time.”

Stan opened his mouth, ready to defend himself, but again, Ford put his hand up to stop him. His brother’s voice had always been strong, fueled by drive and a refusal to let the world tell him what to do, but when he spoke, it sounded shaky. Like he couldn’t believe what he was saying. 

“From what she’s told me, you did read my warnings,” Ford said. “And you assembled this to ninety percent completion with, what,  _ one _ of the journals? That wasn’t supposed to be feasible, Stanley. You knew what you were doing.” He opened his mouth. Shut it. Stan had never seen Ford this halting. 

“You’ve read my journals,” he repeated. “You saw where I was, mentally, when you arrived. Trust no one. You were the only person I could trust. And, and then... ” He waved one hand in a spiral motion at the portal. “I spent thirty years not knowing what to  _ think _ about you, Stanley! Do you know how  _ confounding,  _ how, how  _ intrinsically wrong  _ it is, to not know what to think about something?”

He stared at Stan, nearly imploringly. Stan cleared his throat. Time to do what he did best in serious situations: make a joke. “Uh, if it makes you feel any better, I try not to. As a general rule.”

Ford blinked once, then kept going. “Every time I thought I had a grip on the situation, on what I thought, I’d remember something else, and the whole argument would unravel. She’s helped me organize my thoughts somewhat,” he said, jerking his head towards the staircase. “But it’s still muddy, and I didn’t know how I should feel. I should be righteously angry, I shouldn’t say another word and just walk away, I should jump, scream, throw a fit at how unfair it all was.” He paused, glancing guiltily at Stan.” I should apologize for shutting you out.” He let it hang in the air for just a second before pressing on. “But then, I got word that a child from my dimension was loose in the Nightmare Realm, and I didn’t know how it was possible. But, obviously, it was Mabel _ ,  _ and after everything, after she went through the same thing I did, she was  _ still _ insisting that you were doing the right thing. And that just made it even more confusing.”

Stan swallowed. He was no stranger to Ford’s winding tangents, but he hadn’t expected this. “What’re you thinking now?” He asked cautiously.

Ford looked at him, brow furrowed. “You knew what you were doing,” he repeated. “You made a conscious decision to risk the world. Twice. For me, for us. I don’t know if I can be grateful yet. But I understand now, better than I did before.”

This was wrong. This was supposed to be the part where he and Ford sat down with a beer and swapped stories, and laughed at memories, and were  _ the Pines twins, together again!  _ What the hell was he supposed to do with reluctant acceptance?

But he couldn’t ask that question, so instead, he went with a more manageable one. “What was out there?”

Ford gave another lingering glance at the portal. “It’s so much more than I thought. It isn’t just the one dimension--which, well, isn’t a dimension, per se, more of an interdimensional crawlspace--but an entire universe of universes. It’s incredible. Dangerous, but incredible.”

“And Mabel? How’d… how’d she hold up? How did you even find her, in all of that?”

“Got a tip,” Ford said nondescriptly. “I… I don’t want to open that particular can of worms tonight. But she’s remarkable.”

“Yeah, that sounds like her.” Stan bounced once on the balls of his feet before trying, “She still talk to anything that moves?”

“You have no idea,” Ford groaned. “It was exhausting. We couldn’t be in a crowd for more than five minutes without her making seven ‘friends’.” He put airquotes around the word, making Stan snort. Ford dragged a weary hand down his face. “I can’t believe Ma had to deal with three of us—one is stressful enough.” He blinked, as if he’d said something wrong, but Stan waved him off.

“Come upstairs,” Stan tried. 

Ford sighed. “I can’t say I’m eager to witness the extent of your redecoration.”

He sounded so despondent that Stan actually laughed. “I had to pay your mortgage somehow.”

Ford cracked a small smile at that, looking at Stan full-on for the first time. “It’s good to see you.”

Stan’s chest threatened to burst, so he cleared his throat. “You’re in one piece, which is more than I was hopin’ for, so. This is a win.”

Ford chuckled, eyes drifting back to the portal. His face hardened suddenly as he spotted McGucket’s last-minute edition. “What’s that? I don’t remember that being there.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, McGucket came and put that in the other day. Got rid of the zero-gravity shit.”

Ford’s eyes bugged at the name, but he simply cleared his throat and approached the portal. Stan resisted the urge to grab the collar of his coat and yank him upstairs. No, Stan did  _ not  _ like how nonchalantly people kept approaching the hell machine. “His work is remarkable as always,” Ford mused. Then, “Oh, shit.”

“What? What is it?”

Ford didn’t move. “In the lab, are there still industrial containment devices under the desk?”

“Um—the snowglobe looking mason jars?”

“The--yes, that,” Ford said, unfazed. “Go grab one. Quickly.”

Normally, Stan would argue, but something in Ford’s tone made him move before he knew what he was doing. When he put the glass in Ford’s hand, he stood back and watched Ford kneel, making a motion like he was scooping something out of the dirt. When he stood, fastening the device securely shut, it contained… well, Stan didn’t know how to describe it, but it didn’t look right.

“What is it?”

“Dangerous,” Ford said with a frown. “It’s a dimensional rift. I don’t know if you—“

“Oh, is that triangle thing going to try to get through to our dimension with it?”

Ford’s grip tightened on the rift, and he set his jaw. “You do know, then.”

“Yeah, Dipper filled in the blanks,” Stan said. “Apparently he possessed him at some point. Didn’t Mabel tell you?”

“She did, but she neglected to inform me that they’d told you.”

Stan waved his hand. “Nah, this was after. Come on, do you see anymore?”

Stan helped Ford scour the entire laboratory floor, but when they didn’t find any more rifts, he agreed to leave it in the console and come upstairs.

He thought Ford might have a conniption fit at the gift shop, so Stan was quick to usher him through to the house-part. He expected to find the kids in the living room, but it was entirely devoid of light besides the muted hum of the TV. 

“Kids?” No response. Stan glanced at Ford.

“Mabel!” Ford said sharply, a bit louder.

Distantly, Dipper responded. “We’re outside!”

“Waddles,” Stan said out loud, tapping a knuckle to his forehead. Of course she’d want to go straight to the pig.

“Oh! I’ve heard about Waddles,” Ford said. The tension dissolved from his tone (he actually sounded pleased), and he marched off confidently for the back door. Clearly, the change in decoration hadn’t ruined Ford’s memory of the floor plan.

The backyard was awake. Dipper and Pacifica were sitting on the edge of the porch, the latter absently playing with Gompers’s ears, while Mabel was delightedly playing some kind of tag-esque game with a pig that was now decidedly bigger than she was. 

Stan leaned against the doorframe as Ford stood awkwardly behind the couch. “Do you want a drink?”

“No, thank you,” Ford said. At their voices, Dipper and Pacifica glanced up. Stan saw Pacifica give Ford a once-over. Ford, for his part, gave Stan an alarmed look, as if to ask why there was an extra child.

Stan directed his question to Pacifica. “She ask why you’re here and not in your mansion yet?”

Pacifica made a face. “Not in as many words, but yeah. Didn’t really stop to listen to the answer, though. Catching up with the pig comes first. I can respect that.”

Ford mouthed,  _ mansion?  _ Stan gestured at the kid, who took her cue to stand up. “I’m Pacifica Northwest,” she said in almost a bored tone, reaching to shake Ford’s hand. “You must be the disenfranchised six-fingered twin brother.”

Stan shot her a look as Ford accepted the handshake. “That’s one way of putting it.” Ford returned to his standard posture, but listed his head to one side. “Northwest… are you related to Preston and Priscilla? I knew them some years ago.”

Pacifica sighed. “Yeah. They’re not in town anymore, though.”

Ford seemed to realize that he’d said something wrong, because he glanced at Stan, but before he could say anything else, Mabel called out. “Grunkle Ford, come meet my baby!”

“You’re not allowed to have a baby,” Ford said immediately, giving Pacifica a polite nod and picking his way off the porch. Stan moved to sit down on the couch, the springs creaking as Mabel asked why not, and Ford responded with, “Because that would make me a great-grunkle, and I’m not prepared for that level of responsibility  _ or _ a title of such extreme age.”

Stan stretched as Pacifica sat back down, returning her attention to Gompers. Next to her, Dipper twisted to look up at Stan. Worry was already creasing his face. “She asked if we could call Mom and Dad,” he said slowly.

Stan winced. “What did you say?”

Dipper shook his head. “I, I said we could try in the morning. I didn’t--ugh, I should have told her the truth, I just…”

“Nah, you did the right thing,” Stan said. He wished Mabel hadn’t asked--he should be the one to break the news. Dipper shouldn’t have been caught in the crossfire at all. “Downstairs, after you two left, Ford found something by the portal.”

Dipper raised an eyebrow.

“Dimensional rift, he called it,” Stan echoed, imitating Ford’s inflection. “We got it contained, but I think tomorrow isn’t gonna be as happy-go-lucky as we thought.”

Dipper nodded, then said, “Yeah, but at least they’re back.”

Stan grunted in agreement. 

It wasn’t long after that Mabel gave an enormous yawn, and Ford instantly announced that it was time for them to go to bed. Stan thought that he was talking awful big talk for someone who had never in his life adhered to any kind of sleep schedule, but couldn’t help but agree. Waddles and Gompers retreated to their stalls, and one by one, the humans went inside. Dipper held the door for Ford, stifling a yawn of his own and attempting to ask some question through it. Stan shared an eye roll with Pacifica, who smiled and followed them inside. Before following Pacifica, Mabel sat on the couch next to Stan, leaning her head onto his shoulder.

“I missed you so much,” she said. 

“I missed you too, pumpkin.”

She sighed heavily. “It’s selfish, but I’m so happy you and Dipper got it to work.”

Great, Ford had rubbed off on her. “It isn’t selfish,” he said vehemently.

Mabel sat up to look at him. “Sure it is,” she said, but she then failed to elaborate. “But still. You saved us. Thank you.”

Stan reached out and ruffled her hair. “You heard Ford. Let’s go in, huh?”

Dipper and Pacifica must have gone up already, because Ford was waiting alone at the foot of the stairs. 

“We cleaned up your old room in the back for you,” Stan said.

“Dipper told me.”

Mabel pressed a quick kiss to Stan’s cheek, then Ford’s. “Good night, grunks.”

“Night, sweetie.”

“Sleep well.”

Ford looked at Stan like he wanted to say something more, but just gave a small, rueful smile, and shook his head. “I’ll see you in the morning, Stanley.”

For the first time in more than thirty years, Stan Pines slept soundly through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! I finally sat down and mapped out the full trajectory of the story, which is why there's now a hesitant chapter count. I think I may take a short break from weekly publishing, partly to focus on my schoolwork, and partly so that I can buff up my backlog of chapters. I intend to post snippets and updates regularly on my tumblr (scobblelotcher) so if you want to stay updated, I'd love to see you there! Thank you all so much. Stay safe, wear a mask, love you! :)


	10. Reintegration is Not for the Faint of Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel and Ford are finally back in Gravity Falls, but their path back to normalcy is just beginning. Dipper's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... remember how I said I wasn't going to update this week? Well, it was an extremely eventful seven days, and posting this is a reward for me at this point. It's a long one, so enjoy!

_ October 19, 2016 _

The banister creaked under his weight as he leaned against it, and Pacifica playfully shooed him away from the edge, hissing that if he made noise, they’d get yelled at. Dipper rolled his eyes and tuned her out to listen to his sister’s voice at the bottom of the stairs, with a swell of gratitude that she still sounded the same. Mabel had grown as much as he had (well, maybe not  _ as  _ much, he thought smugly. Who was the tall twin now?) but she was still herself.

Dipper glanced at Pacifica, who was leaning on the balcony next to him. She’d been right about that. 

Paz looked at him. “I think she’s coming upstairs,” she whispered. 

Sure enough, there was Mabel, taking the stairs slowly and running her hand on the railing like she wanted to commit it to memory. She blinked when she spotted them, freezing in place for a split second before smiling. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, come on, you didn’t think we were actually going to go to bed yet, did you?” Dipper said, holding up a plastic bag from the gas station convenience store. “We’re teenagers. We stick it to the man by staying up and eating way too much sugar products.” 

Mabel’s eyes twinkled. “So you’re saying I was a visionary at twelve? Ahead of my time?”

“ _ So _ far ahead of your time,” Pacifica agreed solemnly.

Dipper rolled his eyes again. “Come on, we got a bunch of candy on the way home from school.”

Mabel glanced over her shoulder, then looked back at them with an even wider smile than before. Her braces were gone. Of course her braces were gone—logically, she’d have needed them removed at this point—but it was still an odd realization. Dipper jumped as something nudged his elbow, then rolled his eyes at Pacifica’s pleased snort. She extended a “Come on” to Mabel before she led the way up the attic stairs. 

The attic didn’t look like it had the summer Mabel left. It sat empty for a long time, as Dipper had moved out almost immediately after she’d vanished, but even now, the only similarity it bore was that it once again had a twin bed on either wall. The metal frame of Soos’s old bed didn’t match the old wooden one, and all of Mabel’s posters and knickknacks had been put in a box somewhere. Dipper noted with surprise that Pacifica had switched her sheets to the metal bed, instead of the wooden one that she’d set up for herself when she’d moved in the other night, but if she understood the meaning behind his confused glance, she didn’t show it. Instead, Pacifica just sat down on the creaky mattress, looking expectantly between Mabel and her old bed.

Dipper leaned against the doorframe as Mabel looked around the room. “It’s empty,” she said. 

“Yeah,” Dipper agreed. “I kind of, um, I moved out, once you were gone. And it was empty for a while, so…” he spread his hands winningly. “More room for redecorating?”

“Looks like somebody improved their positive thinking skills while I was away!” She grinned, plopping down on the bare mattress and slinging her backpack off of her shoulders. 

“What happened to your hand?” Dipper asked, noticing the white bandage for the first time.

Mabel flipped her hand over to study the bandage, almost nonchalant. “Oh, this is nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Dipper opened his mouth to argue, because no, he had every right to worry about it, but Mabel cut him off to address Paz. “I’m really sorry, I don’t want to be rude, but the last time I saw you, you’d kind of only just barely started to not hate us. So in the most considerate way possible, I gotta ask… what are you doing here?”

Pacifica shrugged, pulling her knees up onto the mattress beside her. “Do you want the short story or the long story?”

Mabel pulled a ‘duh’ face. “Um, long story, obviously. Also, Dipper, gimme that candy. It’s been four years since I’ve had a Twizzler.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dipper said, holding up the bag he’d forgotten about and tossing a pack of Sour Patch Kids to Pacifica. “Take your pick.”

Mabel gave him a look, then just patted the bed next to her and scooted slightly closer to the headboard to make room for him. “Just sit, bro-bro. We’re sharing all of this.”

She opened a pack of the red strawberry candy, popping one of them into her mouth and nodding at Pacifica. “Tell your tale, Blondie.”

Paz wrinkled her nose at the name, but Dipper just sat back, scooting to lean against the wall. “Yes, oh Valley Girl,” he added sagely, twirling a Twizzler in the air for emphasis. “Weave your web.”

She rolled her eyes, but crossed her legs and popped a gummy into her mouth. “Alright, long version… I didn’t know about any of the portal stuff until a couple of years ago. Summer of 2012, your uncle and Dipper just said that you’d gotten lost in the woods, and the whole town went out to search for you. My dad thought it would make us look benevolent if he funded the rescue expedition.”

Dipper handed Mabel another piece of candy. She chewed it, considering Pacifica’s words. “That sounds pretty benevolent to me.”

“Oh, it totally was,” Pacifica assured her. “Except for that, he sent it from the wrong account.”

“Wrong account?” Mabel echoed. Dipper shrugged when she glanced at him. He’d heard the details before, but was content to listen again. 

“Yeah,” Pacifica sighed. She glumly tore the head off of a Sour Patch Kid. “Apparently, they were doing a lot of shady stuff with offshore accounts. Hiding revenue, avoiding taxes.”

Dipper peeled a Twizzler apart as Mabel said, “Oh.”

“We had to sell the house after the trial’s settlement was all said and done,” Pacifica continued, but she trailed off a little bit. Her voice sounded like she was actually getting upset talking about this.

So Dipper interjected, “Hurry up and get to the good stuff. Y’know, tenth grade, me, et cetera.”

She snorted, throwing a gummy at him. He ducked, then picked it up off of the mattress and ate it with a ‘so there’ expression. 

“I had to get a job at Greasy’s, and then when that girl Wendy left for college, she convinced Stan to give me a job here at the Shack,” Pacifica said. “That was the summer after freshman year, as Dipper said.” She nodded at him judiciously. “Since then, it’s pretty much been like this. Turns out, the other rich kids in this town don’t like you so much when you work for tips.”

“Yikes,” Mabel said. “That sucks, and I’m glad stuff worked out for you. But I’m still kind of confused as to why you _ live  _ here?”

“Oh, my parents decided that since I was an adult with a job, they could go avoid the ramifications of their actions in Kolkata,” Pacifica said in an artificially bright voice. She waggled a Sour Patch Kid at Mabel. “But I… couldn’t, so Stan said I could stay.”

“He’s gone softer since you left,” Dipper informed his sister conspiratorially, tossing the Twizzlers across the room. Pacifica caught the pack and pulled two out before lobbing it back. Mabel reached and snatched it out of the air, crowing at Dipper as she leaned back against the headboard with her prize. 

He watched her, his laugh dying in his throat as it closed unexpectedly. The fact that she was back, two feet away from him, sitting and laughing like she’d never been gone—it was almost too much.

Mabel tore a Twizzler in her teeth and swatted at his knee with the other. “Earth to Dipper,” she said. Then, as soon as she’d said it, her eyes widened and she laughed again.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m actually on Earth!” She spread her hands and looked delightedly around the room. “It  _ is  _ Earth to Dipper!” She yawned again, and Dipper glanced at Pacifica because  _ how was he supposed to respond to that?  _ but her smile bounced back into place shortly after it had passed.

He didn’t want to bring up any unpleasant memories, but he was dying to know. “So… what was out there? Did you have to deal with Bill?” 

Mabel scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Yes. When I first went through, I— it was really strange. I could see Bill’s dimension for a split second, but then it was like I woke up in my bed. This bed.” She patted the headboard fondly. “And the whole day started over, exactly the same, except for no agents. And it was so weird, and every time I tried to ask you or Stan what was going on, you acted like nothing was wrong. So I went to the vending machine and tried to get down here to prove I wasn’t crazy, and then everything kind of… melted? From a dream to a nightmare, sort of situation, it was really weird. And  _ that  _ was no fun, let me tell you.”

“How did he do that?” Dipper asked. “Convince you you were back home?”

“He put me in some kind of… dream bubble, I think Ford called it?” She listed her head, chewing her candy contemplatively. “But he found me, and we got out of Bill’s dimension, and it’s been the two of us ever since.”

“I’m so jealous,” Dipper said, then immediately clapped his hands over his mouth at Mabel’s frozen expression. Oh, god. Had he just said that? “I mean, um. Not that—I didn’t mean to—“

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Mabel said. “There was a lot of stuff that you would have geeked out over—oh!” She seemed to remember something, and yanked her backpack towards her. “Here!”

She shoved a book into Dipper’s hands, bouncing. Dipper brushed his fingers over the deep magenta cover, painted with a simple, graceful white arc that twinkled on one end. “Is this…?”

“Ford gave it to me on our thirteenth birthday,” Mabel said. “Well, not that one, that one’s gone, but the first one was on that birthday. I guess I’d said enough about how much I missed you, and how much you liked  _ his  _ journals, that he made one for me.”

“How did he get bookbinding supplies in the multiverse?” Pacifica asked.

“With frugality,” Mabel replied delicately.

Dipper flipped through it. “When did you start this one? What happened to the other one?”

“Oh, I finished it,” Mabel said, “And it was dead weight to keep carrying. There’s this one dimension that’s full of black holes, so we did a speedrun through there and got rid of anything that we didn’t need to keep carrying, but was too personal to sell or throw away. Kind of like the bottomless pit, except actually bottomless. We got new journals, and this one’s… a yeeear and a half old? A little more? Yeah, cause it was March 2015 that I got it, and then in April... yeah. Yeah, year and a half.”

Dipper paused on a page that was filled with careful sketches of lion-like anthropomorphs. “You got really good at this,” he said, impressed.

“Thanks,” Mabel said. Her hands twitched a bit, and he took the cue to hand the book back. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to be grabby, but I went kind of emo on a couple of the entries and you don’t need to see that. But here, like, this dimension was cool—everything was shaped like the letter M! The whole alphabet was M, all the words started with M… Ford says even thinking about it makes him feel ‘muicidal’, but I thought it was great.”

“That’s insane!”

“Isn’t it? You would have liked it.”

“I bet.” Dipper glanced over Mabel’s scrawling cursive as she rifled through for anything else to show him. “Did you document any anomalies?”

Mabel gave a little laugh. “Dude, out there, everything’s an anomaly. And, nothing is! Every dimension’s normal is different, so there’s no way to know what’s weird.”

Dipper blinked. That was… a surprisingly fair answer. He shifted his weight, crossing his legs and leaning forward slightly. “Okay, then, what’s Ford like?”

Mabel inhaled with every sign of a proud family member about to spew fraternal praises, but she paused and looked at Pacifica. “I’m sorry, I feel like we’re leaving you out, are you okay?”

“Me? No, I’m fine to listen, you guys just talk,” Pacifica said, giving Dipper a bemused look before leaning against the wall.

“Ford,” Dipper pressed. He’d heard Stan’s account of his brother, the good, the bad, and the ugly. He knew about their childhood in New Jersey and Ford moving out here to Gravity Falls, but Stan had admitted that most of what he knew about Ford’s life between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight had come from written documents. Dipper didn’t really care about college days, though. He wanted to know what kind of person this guy was.

Mabel nodded. “Right, right. I mean, what do you want me to say? He’s just as much of a nerd as he was when he wrote the journals, but I mean, it changes you out there. I don’t think he was afraid of much when he was exploring Gravity Falls, but now I know there’s honestly only two things that really scare him.” She tapped her chin, and Dipper opened his mouth to pepper in his questions—what was out there that changed a person? What did he have to be afraid of, besides Bill?—but then she was moving on. “But he’s awesome. Every new dimension, he either had something to say about it, or he was discovering on the fly like I was, and oh, my God, Dipper, I know he looks intimidating but he’s  _ such _ a dork. He’s really funny-- sarcastic, like you. And so smart. I know I didn’t care so much about the anomalies and stuff when I was little, but now, I sort of get it? I’m still happy to be back to normal, though.”

Dipper bit at his lip. He was definitely even more jealous now, but then Mabel said, “But what about you and Stan? What did you guys do?”

“Oh,” Dipper said. “It took a while for me to trust Stan again, after everything. But right after, um, you know, we had to hide in the basement for a while, so he got a chance to explain himself. We ended up using McGucket’s memory gun to get the agents away, and we got back to work.”

“Did you know that McGucket and Ford knew each other?” Mabel gushed. 

“Yeah, I did know that,” Dipper said. “They were friends.”

Mabel took it in stride with nothing but a small, knowing smile on her face. “Yeah, friends. How’s he holding up these days?”

“McGucket’s the first independent candidate ever to stand a chance in November’s election,” Pacifica supplied from her bed. “He’s a lot less crazy than the last time you saw him. Although he did campaign on the promise of every American schoolchild receiving a ten-ton spider robot, so don’t put too much stock in ‘less crazy’.”

Mabel blinked. “Wow.” She shook her head slightly, then snapped her attention back to Dipper. “But you and Stan… you’re okay now?”

“Yeah,” Dipper said, and he meant it. “Yeah, we are.”

Mabel sighed in relief, flopping her head against the wall. “Good! I was worried that you two broken teacups would fully shatter without me. It’s nice to see that you figured out how to talk about emotions after all.”

“Hey!” Dipper protested, casting a quick and nonconscpicious glance at Pacifica. “I’m plenty emotionally competent. And Stan was fine to begin with.”

He met her ‘sure you are’ face with a harmless glare, and continued glaring even as she moved on. “I’m just saying—Pacifica, has Stan ever once asked you to ‘please’ do something?”

“Never,” Pacifica said immediately. Dipper looked at her and mouthed,  _ Traitor.  _

“I know that I was a wreck, even though I had Ford looking out for me,” Mabel continued in a matter of fact tone. “And let’s face it, Dipper, if either of our twelve-year-old selves were going to survive a rapid relocation to a foreign and hostile environment, it was bound to me. It took you two weeks to move normally around the Mystery Shack without checking every doorway you walked through. And that was just in the house!”

Pacifica giggled. Dipper shot her another  _ Not helping!  _ look, and she rolled her eyes, shifting her weight as she spoke up. “Like, I know that I’m not the world’s leading authority on Stan or anything, because I didn’t even know him that well when we were little. I can’t say whether or not he’s  _ changed,  _ necessarily, but he’s pretty cool. He shows up to all of the parent-team meetings and races and everything.”

“Races?” Mabel repeated curiously, looking between them. Dipper spread his hands winningly, shooting a finger gun at Pacifica. 

“You’re looking at the captains of the Gravity Falls high school cross country and track team,” he announced. Another Sour Patch Kid hit him in the temple.

Mabel blinked. “Are you sure it isn’t mathletics?”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “No, it’s a real sport.”

She blinked again, then smiled. “That’s awesome! I’m really happy for you.” She stuffed the last Twizzler into her mouth, and silence fell.

“So… you said you couldn’t keep carrying stuff,” Dipper said, digging in the plastic bag for more candy. 

Mabel accepted the MnMs he offered her with a cautious expression. “Yeah, and?”

“Well—why would you have go throw stuff into a black hole instead of just leaving it at home?” Dipper asked, bewildered. 

Mabel stopped picking at the MnMs package. “We didn’t have a home,” she said, as thought it should be obvious. 

“What?” Or, more importantly, why?

Mabel shrugged, flipping the package in her hands a couple of times. “Stuff got heavy,” she said evenly. “I’m a much lighter packer now.” She leaned over and put the candy on the table, unopened. “Actually, I know you did all this for me, but would it be okay if we went to bed now? I’m really tired, and I’d kill for a shower.”

“Oh,” Dipper said. “Uh, sure. Sure, that’s fine. Paz, do you think you—?”

“I know where everything is,” Mabel reminded him, insistent. “I lived here, I don’t need anybody to show me around.”

“I was gonna say ‘have any clothes she can borrow’, but you can keep wearing your Star Wars ensemble if you want,” Dipper retorted. 

Mabel recoiled a tiny bit. “Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Pacifica stood up. “Yeah, I should have something, but I don’t know if I have any pants that’ll fit her, she’s taller than I am. Go get some sweatpants or something.”

It took Dipper a minute to realize that this instruction was directed at him. “Me? Oh, sure.” 

He moved as quietly as he could to his room, but after quickly rummaging through his dresser, remembered that he’d done laundry yesterday, and that the pants he had in mind were likely sitting in the dryer, the cycle having finished hours ago. Moving quieter still, he slunk down the stairs and through the main floor. The laundry room was right across from Stanford’s room, and the last thing he wanted was to wake up that guy. Talk about the world’s worst first impression.

The tiles were cold under his feet. After slowly opening the door and sifting through his clothes in the dim yellow light of the dryer, Dipper found the black cotton sweatpants and turned to go back upstairs and  _ shit oh god Stanford’s door was open oh god he was right there oh god I woke him up oh shit oh no— _

“Dipper? Is everything alright?” Stanford said. His voice was low, as though he’d been asleep, but every other aspect of his appearance was alert. He’d shed the spear that was strapped across his chest, and his outer layers, but he was still wearing his black sweater and heavy boots, and it was impossible to miss the futuristic-looking pistol in his hand.

“No, everything’s fine!” Dipper assured him. He held up the sweatpants. “Mabel wanted to change clothes.”

Stanford—Ford? Stan always called him Ford, Dipper had started referring to him as Ford, but it felt too casual now that he was here in the flesh—nodded and flipped a switch on the blaster before leaning over to set it down somewhere. “Ah. Yes. Very good.” He stifled a yawn, then glanced at the ceiling, tapping at one ear with a small smile. “You might want to work on the stealth aspect of your sleepovers in the future.”

The blood rushed out of Dipper’s head, but whatever horrified expression his face was making, Stanford chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell Stan.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried about that,” Dipper said instantly. “He takes his hearing aids out and he can’t tell a jet from a mosquito.”

Stanford raised an eyebrow, and Dipper thought he recognized the glint in his eye as a sibling who just got leverage, but the look was gone as quickly as it had arrived. “It’s nice to hear you all having a good time.”

Dipper waited for him to say literally anything else, but Stanford just stood there, then drummed his hands on the doorframe. After the silence had grown to the approximate size and weight of a mature African elephant, Stanford patted the frame decisively. “Well, it’s late—“

“Great-Uncle Stanford, Mabel says you guys didn’t live anywhere,” Dipper blurted. “And, and she was there for a lot less time than you. Were you just… some kind of nomad the whole time you were in there?”

Stanford sighed heavily. For a moment, Dipper thought he might not answer, but then he said, “Humans are… far and few between in the multiverse. It can be risky to stay in one place for too long.” He looked at Dipper intently, as if to ensure that he understood. “We make a rare commodity.”

Dipper’s stomach hit the floor. Great. His family had been avoiding trafficking for years, and here he was feeling jealous that he hadn’t been able to go on space adventures. He wasn’t able to hold back the guilty sigh that escaped him. “That sounds awful, I’m… I’m really sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Stanford said, and he almost sounded surprised. “Listen, Dipper—from what Mabel’s told me about your interest in anomalies, I’m guessing that you probably wish you were able to see the multiverse, too.”

Dipper’s nod felt like an admission of a crime.

“And that’s perfectly fine! Proof of a science-driven mind,” Stanford said. “I know firsthand the temptation of the unknown, believe me. And when we’re rested, I’ll be glad to share with you as many answers as you have questions. Mabel will, too.”

Dipper looked up gratefully as Stanford’s encouraging tone turned serious. “But you’re a bright kid, and I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you. It’s important to me that you recognize that it wasn’t a scientific expedition. The threats in the multiverse far surpass the wonder. It was survival.”

Dipper studied the sweatpants in his hands and considered making a break for the bottomless pit. “Mabel didn’t say anything about danger,” he said. Even as he said it, he knew it was a weak excuse.

“I’ve learned that your sister prefers to maintain a positive outlook even in the most extreme circumstances,” Stanford said. “It’s not always a negative trait. To tell you the truth, I’ve come to rely on it. But it can be detrimental when it comes to getting an accurate estimate of her real emotional state. I would take her accounts of the multiverse with a grain of salt, my boy. She doesn’t want to worry anyone, least of all, you.”

That didn’t sound right. Mabel loved being the center of attention. But, that wasn’t fair, attention wasn’t  _ worry _ , and it was only when she was doing a bit. Dipper considered all the times in the past that a wounded or insecure Mabel had continued to pretend that everything was fine rather than acknowledge a hurt, and again, beat back guilt. 

“We’ve only just come back,” Stanford said kindly. “There’s bound to be a period of reintegration. She grew up. So did you. It’s unfair to yourself to assume that you’ll be just as you were as children.”

Dipper looked at the floor, then at Stanford, a little dumbfounded. “You were alone for thirty years, and I read all of your theses, and none of them were in psychological sciences. How are you so good at talking about this stuff?”

Stanford chuckled, glancing at the ceiling again. “Take a wild guess, kid.”

“Oh. Yeah. She’d do that, I guess.” Dipper frowned, then asked his question haltingly. “It’s okay if the answer is no, or even not yet. But the dangerous stuff… she isn’t going to tell me about it.”

It wasn’t a question, not yet, but Stanford still shook his head in confirmation anyway.

“Will you?”

His uncle’s face was hard now. “As the need arises,” Stanford decided. “We’ll talk tomorrow, how’s that sound?”

“Good. Thank you. Good night.”

Stanford waved him away with a good-natured smile, and Dipper heard his door shut before he’d hit the main floor. 

The shower on the second floor was already running, so Dipper figured Mabel must have been tired of waiting. When he got back to the attic and knocked softly on the closed door, Pacifica let him in. “What took you so long?” She asked, taking the pants from him.

“Stanford was awake,” he said. “I got sidetracked.”

Pacifica rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, what you should be getting is some sleep.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, about to argue, but the words were overtaken by a yawn. “Seriously!” Pacifica insisted, nudging him out towards the stairs. 

In a slight panic, Dipper said, “Why are you coming?”

She raised an eyebrow and held up the pants. “I’m bringing these to Mabel?”

“Oh. Good call.”

“God, you’re such a dork. Go to  _ bed _ .”

She turned towards the bathroom at the bottom of the stairs, but Dipper obligingly headed down the hall in the other direction. He was still so filled with questions that he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep despite his evident exhaustion, but blissfully, he was out within seconds of hitting the pillow.

>>>>>•<<<<<

By the time Dipper woke up, he could hear voices downstairs. Maybe the chattern had been what had woken him up. He looked at his phone—oh, he hadn’t plugged that in last night, ten percent. Not good. But it was… eight thirty? Good. 

He plugged his phone in, ran a hand through his hair, and headed to the main floor. The majority of the voices seemed to be coming from the kitchen, so he made his way in and poured himself a cup of coffee. Pacifica and Ford were sitting at the table, Mabel’s old cookbook open in front of them. Mabel stood next to Ford in his pants and a tank top of Pacifica’s, leaning over his shoulder to read ingredients off of a recipe, and Stan was rummaging through the pantries and spitting off from memory whether or not they had all of the ingredients for any given recipe.

“Good morning, Dipper!” Mabel said, and Dipper was delighted to draw the conclusion that it  _ was  _ a good morning. His family was all safe, and they were all here. Well, mostly.

“Morning! Hey, Soos said you were gonna call him in the morning,” Dipper said to Stan.

Stan handed him a container of baking soda. “Check the date on that. And there’s still lots of morning left, I’m not gonna leave him hanging.”

Dipper frowned, flipping the box over in his hand. “This is over two years old.”

“Eh, it’ll do.”

“No? No, it won’t?”

“Don’t worry, we can just use quadruple baking powder,” Mabel piped up. She reached around Ford to pick up the book, holding open the page for coffee cake. “We’re getting festive in the Shack today!”

“Well, I guess we do have something to celebrate,” Dipper agreed. 

She grinned, turning to hand the book up to Stan with a “Make sure I didn’t miss anything.” As she passed him the book, Dipper got a good look at her left arm, and nearly said something out loud. She was already turning back to the table, and Dipper was gaping after her because  _ what could have left  _ that _ ugly a scar _ , but a throat cleared, and Dipper looked up to see Stan staring at him intently. He shook his head the tiniest bit, eyes darting to Mabel’s arm then back at the cookbook. Dipper swallowed. 

Great Uncle Stanford hadn’t been kidding.

Stan dove into and emerged from the depths of the shelf, holding a container of cinnamon aloft in victory and tossing the cookbook back onto the table with the other ingredients. Mabel busied herself with hunting down mixing bowls and measuring cups, passing them to Pacifica, who organized them on the tabletop with a satisfied nod. Dipper sipped at his coffee, then after some quick mental math, went to the den and grabbed himself a chair from the other table. By the time he got back, the entire kitchen had been mobilized (or should it be Mabel-ized? He made himself chuckle with the thought). As much as one can sneak while holding a wooden chair, he snuck over to the table and situated himself between Stanford, who was reclining in his seat and staring blankly at the wolf head on top of the fridge, and Pacifica, who was working at butter and flour with a fork.

Before long, and with much command decisions on Mabel’s part, the cake was done, and Dipper was handing her a knife and a spatula to divvy it up. Sitting around the table, chatting about any thought that came to mind and nothing in particular--this felt right. It had been a long time since Dipper had had a meal that left him feeling this content.

Stan set his fork down on his empty plate, pressing the pad of his finger to the ceramic to pick up crumbs. “Well, I gotta go call Soos,” he said, standing up. “Promised I’d tell if we got you back alright. Nobody go anywhere, and don’t start a war while I’m gone.” He chuckled to himself as he left the room.

Dipper dragged Stan’s plate across the table and stacked it atop his own, methodically gathering all of the empty dishes and carrying them to the sink. From behind him, Mabel said, “Phone call! Can I call Mom and Dad now?”

The dishes fell into the sink much too heavily, and Dipper winced at the clatter. He turned around tensely, not sure where to look. Mabel’s face was bright, looking between him and Ford, and Ford was saying that that sounded like an excellent idea, and did Dipper have one of those cellular telephones Mabel had told him about?

But he couldn’t say anything. Just like last night, his throat was tight and his chest was even tighter and what was he supposed to say?

His silence stretched on too long. Pacifica’s face was drawn in sympathy, and the smile was draining from Ford’s, but Mabel either didn’t notice or didn’t want to. “C’mon, Dipper, I think we’ve waited long enough,” she said good-naturedly.

Dipper opened his mouth and shut it again. He looked at Ford helplessly--why, he didn’t know. What was he going to do? He hadn’t been here. For all Dipper knew, Ford had never even met his parents. Ford inhaled heavily, and Mabel looked at him in concern. “Are you okay?” Ford just blinked.

“Mabel,” Dipper said, and she looked back at him, her smile nervous now. “They’re not… um. They died.”

Her smile fell off of her face, and her eyes to the tabletop. But other than that, she didn’t move a muscle.

“Mabel, I’m really sorry,” he said softly, inching back to the table to sit down in his chair. 

Mabel focused on one speck in the linoleum table top. “When?”

“Sophomore year,” he managed. 

She didn’t look up. “How?”

“Car crash. Some guy flew through a red light, took them with him.”

She swallowed, gaze hardening on the tabletop. Ford leaned towards her and placed his hand on her shoulder, and she broke her stare to glance at him. Then she swallowed again, cleared her throat, and looked at Dipper. There was a dull sort of wash over her usually vibrant face. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?

Dipper didn’t know what to say. “I couldn’t,” he said after a moment. “You were so happy, just to be back, and to see Waddles, I—I couldn’t do it.”

“You should have,” she said, and Dipper shrank at the venom in her voice. He glanced at Ford, partly in guilt and partly in alarm, but Ford only looked concerned. 

Then Mabel deflated a little bit. “I get that you didn’t want to burst my bubble, Dipper, I do. But how could you say we’ll try tomorrow?”

“What else was he supposed to say?” Pacifica asked gently from her side of the table. A part of Dipper was grateful for her defense, but the rest of him flared in annoyance that she was getting in the middle of this. 

“I don’t know.” Mabel was sullen now. 

“Because he lost them, too,” Pacifica pointed out. “And he gave you one more night in a world where they were still alive. That’s pretty cool.”

Well,  _ that  _ made him sound much more benevolent than he was. Dipper glanced at her this time, at the same time that Mabel snapped, “Would you stay out of this?”

From behind him, Dipper heard Stan’s confused voice. “Whoa, what’s going on?”

Dipper twisted in his seat to look at Stan helplessly. Stan stiffened. “Oh. Right.” He straightened his shoulders, addressing Mabel. “I’m really sorry, sweetie. I’m the one who told Dipper not to tell ya.”

“Why would you do that?” Mabel and Ford said in perfect unison. Dipper noticed that Ford’s tone was much more suspicious than Mabel’s, but maybe he was projecting his own suspicions. The only conversation he’d had with Stan on this topic had been  _ after  _ he’d lied to Mabel. 

“You do remember I’m the adult here, right?” Stan frowned. Mabel started to shake her head, looking at Ford, but Stan snapped his fingers. “Nuh uh. Eyes here.”

Mabel obliged, but squinted. “What happened to ‘good thing I’m an uncle’?” 

This time, when she was met with uncomfortable silence in which Dipper and Stan exchanged a glance before staring at her, she took a hint and sank back in her seat. Dipper looked again at Stan. What was he doing? Assuming responsibility? It wasn’t like he’d  _ never  _ done it before, but it was still rare. 

“It doesn’t matter why,” Stan said, and Dipper had to admire his ability to cut off a line of indignant “But—“s with nothing but a glare. “‘Cause I said so.” Then he sighed. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

Mabel pushed her chair back. “Is Soos coming over?”

Dipper waited for Stan’s nod, then said, “Before he gets here, do you wanna call Grandpa?”

Ford and Mabel exchanged a look, then Mabel nodded. “That would be good.”

“I’ll go get the laptop,” Pacifica said, and Dipper followed her out of the room as she made for the living room. 

“Dude,” she said, as soon as they were out of earshot from those still in the kitchen. 

Dipper groaned and ran his hand through his hair. “I blew that. Ugh, I can’t believe I blew that so hard.”

“I mean, it could have gone worse,” Pacifica tried. He fixed her with a deprecating look. 

“How? How could that have gone worse?”

“She could have stormed out,” Pacifica said, pulling a chair out of her way as they reached the den.

Dipper considered this. That was true. “Did you see the way she looked at me? God, I’m the worst.”

She bit the inside of her cheek like she wanted to argue, but seemed to argue against it, bending down to unplug the laptop’s charger. Dipper valiantly stared at the floor between his feet. “And then Stan lied.”

“So? That’s not new.”

“I get why, but I wish he wouldn’t have.”

Pacifica straightened with a huff, cord in hand. “Look, your problems are like, a million times worse than mine, so you know I’m happy to listen, but if you’re just gonna whine about Stan being a good person again, I don’t want to hear it.”

Dipper blinked. “Wh--I’m not  _ whining. _ ”

Pacifica jabbed the plug at him to punctuate her words. “When your parents died, he stepped up. You both seem to want to pretend that nothing changed, but everybody else saw it. Soos gets emotional over it on a regular basis.”

Dipper ignored the guilt that flared in his chest at that, choosing instead to go on the offensive. “I-- why were you even paying so much attention then?”

She shrugged. “It was a nice distraction. Y’know, in a driving-past-a-car-crash kind of way.” Immediately after saying it, she blanched--sure, she was dry, but she wasn’t  _ cruel-- _ but Dipper couldn’t help his snort. More at her expression than at her uncharacteristically thoughtless slip of the tongue, but the stunned look on her face didn’t hurt. 

He grabbed the laptop off of its shelf, shaking his head a little bit. “Man, you haven’t met my grandpa, but I for one can’t  _ wait  _ to see how he’s gonna react to this.”

When they got back to the kitchen, Dipper brushed past Stan to set the laptop on the table. Stan grumbled something about ‘Don’t need two of you to go get a computer’, and Dipper flushed, but not before Ford loudly and disbelievingly echoed, “Computer?”

Thanking his lucky stars that his uncle seemed to care more about technology than Stan’s snide comment, Dipper snatched the opportunity to change the subject. “Yeah! Your stuff in the lab is kind of obsolete now, heh.”

Mabel elbowed Ford. “I told you about all of this, remember? It’s no MPS, but it’s still pretty neat. I’m still not sure how it works physically, and I bet it’s better than I remember.” She looked at Dipper expectantly. Her eyes were red around the rims, but she was pretending nothing was wrong, and at this point, he knew that if he tried to push it, he was setting himself up for an even deeper divide than four years and dead parents had already caused.

“Yeah, it is,” Dipper agreed again, twisting the now open laptop so that he could open Skype. He started to explain the technical application of cameras and wireless transmission to Ford, who was listening intently. Dipper couldn’t help but feel a little stunned, that here he was, explaining something new to a guy that was easily the smartest person Dipper knew. 

“Less nerd talk, more computer magic,” Stan grumbled, gesturing vaguely at the screen. “Make it work.”

Dipper rolled his eyes, but sent a quick message.  _ Hey, Grandpa. Can you call? We have to talk. _

Ford leaned curiously over when the affirmative reply came through with a pleasant  _ ding!  _ moments later. “Is that him?”

“Yep,” Dipper said. He glanced up at the two of them, a thought occurring to him. “Maybe I should try to explain before we just… spring you on him.”

Ford and Mabel glanced at one another, then at Stan, who shrugged. “Nah, it’ll be more fun this way.”

“Hold on, Stanley, he’s older than we are,” Ford said contemplatively. “If his state is anything like yours, we could be risking cardiac malfunction from shock alone.”

“Anything like  _ mine _ ?” 

“Maybe start with just Mabel,” Pacifica suggested. “She went missing recently enough that he’ll probably buy it with relief instead of flat-out panic. And then once he’s accepted that, we can try you,” she said, nodding at Ford. “Foot-in-door and all.”

Mabel nodded emphatically. “That sounds good. That’s smart.” She offered Pacifica a hesitant smile.

Dipper nodded, too. “That could work. Sound good?” He glanced between his uncles, waiting for their agreement before starting the call. The line rang twice before Shermie accepted the call, his image showing up on screen.

“Hi, Grandpa,” Dipper said, wiping his palms on his pants. 

“Heya, Dip,” Shermie said. “Stan, is that you?”

“Yeah, I’m here, Sherm,” Stan said in a bored way. His face wasn’t visible in the frame, so when Dipper threw him a questioning look at his tone and he  _ winked, _ Dipper took it as his cue. 

“So what’s going on?” Shermie asked. “Are you both okay?”

“What? Yeah, we’re fine! More than! I just-- oh, man, this is harder than I thought. Okay. Um. You remember how Mabel went missing?”

Shermie’s face shifted from concern to confusion. “I--what about Mabel?”

“We found her last night.”

There was silence, both in the kitchen in Gravity Falls, and from Shermie’s end in Piedmont. Then Shermie chuckled. “Dipper, can you repeat yourself? Your audio must be acting up because I could have sworn you just said ‘We found her.’”

In response, Dipper invited Mabel to scoot on frame with a jerk of his head, and she eagerly stood up to come lean on the back of his chair. “No, you heard him right!”

Shermie’s face froze. The only indication that his camera hadn’t stopped working was the steady swing of the pendulum in the grandfather clock that was visible in the far corner of the room. 

“Grandpa?” Mabel said.

Shermie stared at them for a good minute before saying, “Mason, what the hell are you playing at?”

“Grandpa, he isn’t playing at anything! I’m here,” Mabel insisted.

“How?” He demanded. “I was there. We combed every inch of those woods, and there was no sign of you, and it’s been  _ four  _ years? Why now? What’s going on?”

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” Mabel said, and the grin that had been plastered on her face since ‘Heya, Dip’ started to fall.

“No, I am!” Shermie said quickly. “I--you have no idea, but it-- this doesn’t make any sense!”

Dipper glanced at Mabel’s crestfallen face, then at Stan, who was frowning at the laptop. Then, without warning, he leaned forward and glared sternly at the camera. “Sherm, I’m gonna show you something that’s not gonna make sense, but you gotta promise me you’re not gonna have a heart attack or I’ll come kill you myself.”

Dipper couldn’t see Shermie’s reaction to that, not with Stan in the way, but he could hear the “You’re not making any sense!” 

Stan ignored the overlapping protests from literally everyone else in the room and turned the laptop around. 

Ford cleared his throat, holding up one hand and waving at the camera. The gesture was so awkward that Dipper couldn’t help but pity the guy. “Hello there, Sherman.”

Another long moment of silence. Mabel leaned forward to peer around the screen. Then:

“Stanford.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s me,” Ford said.

“I...” Shermie said. Mabel rounded the table again, sitting back down next to Ford. Dipper felt Stan take Mabel’s place, leaning on the back of his chair. “Did I die?”

“No one died,” Stan said. “It’s just… a long story. But the point is, everyone’s here, and everyone’s okay.”

“Stanley,” Shermie said. “God, Stan, if you’ve been Stanley this whole time… well, it explains a lot.”

Stan faltered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mabel sucked her teeth, and Ford gave Stan a skeptical look. Dipper heard Shermie laugh at their faces. “Eh, they get it.”

Stan grumbled something unintelligibly. Shermie continued. “But Ford, where-- if Stan was you, then where did you get off to?”

Ford winced. “I don’t-- um.”

The Pineses all looked at one another, unable to speak, before Mabel said, “It’s a really long story, but the point is everyone’s home and okay and in one piece.”

Somewhere in Shermie’s house, an alarm went off. Dipper saw Mabel and Ford look at one another as Shermie’s voice grew exasperated. “Oh, dammit, James,” he said to whoever was calling. “It’s--maybe I can reschedule--”

“No, go do your old-man stuff,” Stan said. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

“I--fine. Yes. You two,” he said. “I’m so glad to see you both. Ford, would you turn me around?”

Ford obliged, and Dipper was met with Shermie’s unreadable face. “We’re talking about this later. I’ll send you an email.”

“Okay, Grandpa,” Dipper said. 

He hung up abruptly, and Dipper was left with his and Stan’s matching grimaces reflected in the screen.

“Well, he knows we’re alive, and he didn’t have a heart attack!” Mabel said brightly “I call that a success.”

Dipper buried his face in his arms with a groan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kids are going to be alright, don't worry, but much like the show, there's got to be some time for them to... get to know each other again? Four years is a long time. As for the Stans, prepare yourself for surrogate-parent bonding, 'cause that's coming. As always, I'm on tumblr (scobblelotcher.tumblr.com) if you want more frequent updates on the writing process, I love ya, and keep yourselves safe!


	11. Game Plans and Disgrunklement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some low-stakes competition and back porch reacquainting. Ford’s POV

_ October 19, 2016 _

The rest of the morning passed in relative ease compared to that nightmare of a breakfast, in Ford’s opinion. That said, he wouldn’t be surprised if Sherman showed up on the doorstep in the next twenty-four hours, knowing his brother and the magnitude of the surprise they’d just given him. 

Speaking of Sherman, his reaction had been alarming enough to spur Ford down a less-than-pleasant idea trail. He hadn’t been immediately relieved, he hadn’t broken down into tears of joy—he’d been  _ suspicious _ . 

Of course he had; Shermie was no fool. He’d never been on Ford’s level academically, but he wasn’t an idiot. It was impossible to be an idiot, growing up in their house. Though, Ford amended with a glance at Stan, some inhabitants had tried their hardest.

It was pleasant enough that they went outside, and the teens sprawled on the lawn to play a board game. He, Stan, and a man called Soos, whose arrival had caused Mabel to squeal loud enough that nearby birds took flight, sat on the porch. Ford worried over his idea for a good while, not wanting to give it voice before he had to. Three times, Mabel looked up from the game to ask what he was thinking about, and three times he brushed her aside, telling her not to worry about it. It wasn’t until Dipper asked, sympathetically, “Is it about the rift?” that Ford’s eyes snapped up.

“Where did you—? No, it’s not that.” Stan must have told him, then. When Ford glanced at him, Stan shrugged. Fine. Ford huffed and squared his shoulders. This was  _ fine _ . These strange teenagers could know about his greatest mistakes in life and their potentially apocalyptic ramifications. Obviously.

“No,” he repeated. “No, actually, I was thinking about what we’re going to do about the town.”

“What about the town?” Soos asked.

“Mabel and I can hardly be ourselves,” Ford said, gesturing at his niece, who was using her pig as a backrest as she dominated the Monopoly board. “If I go around saying I’m Stanford Pines, everyone’s going to assume you had a—well, I suppose I can’t call it a  _ midlife  _ crisis—”

“We’re the  _ same age! _ ”

Ford continued as though he hadn’t heard him. “And if Mabel introduces herself by her real name? From the sounds of it, everyone between here and California will recognize her.”

Mabel sat up, listing her head to one side as she shook her cupped hands. “I don’t care if I have to have a fake name, I just can’t wait to go to school.” She paused, then laughed, tossing her dice onto the board. “Man, I never thought I’d say  _ that _ .”

Ford blinked. He knew, of all people, how badly she wanted this experience, but couldn’t she see how… how illogical it was? The high school wouldn’t accept ‘more life experience than most adults could hope to accumulate in sixty years’ in credits. If she were to enroll in a high school, it would be years before she would graduate. It would be even more socially alienating than homeschooling, let alone academically. He pocketed the uncomfortable conclusion. They would discuss the matter of her getting a GED later; she’d received enough painful news for one day.

Soos gasped loudly. “Oh, dudes, I just had a brainwave.”

“Enlighten us,” Stan said dryly, taking a sip of his cola. Ford eyed it with distaste. 

“Everyone here knows Dipper is Mr. Pines’s great-nephew,” Soos said. “And most of ‘em know Shermie from when your family came up here to look for Mabel.” He looked at Stan expectantly. “Because he’s just in California, right? He’s close enough. But no one expected your mom to come all the way from New Jersey to look for Mabel. No one even  _ knows _ you’re from New Jersey.”

“Where are you going with this?” Stan said. Ford couldn’t help but silently echo Stan’s question. He also put a pin in the idea that Ma had been alive as recently as four years ago.

“What if we just all agreed that your brother Ford here is from the east coast?” Soos said excitedly. “And you  _ do _ have a niece who’s here in Gravity Falls now, just... a different one! A non-great niece!” He broke off, looking at Mabel apologetically. “You know what I mean.”

“You’re losing your mind,” Stan said.

Ford heard his own thoughts echoed by the Northwest girl. “No, hang on, he might be onto something,” Pacifica said without looking up, moving her piece around the board. She began listing items in a nearly bored tone. “You guys are already close, and everyone knows Shermie looks a lot like Stan. So no one would question the fact that Ford’s kid and Shermie’s grandkid look alike. Plus,” she added, looking up at Stan, “People know Mr. Mystery, but I think that the town knows you’ve got a lot that they don’t know about. They’ll buy that you have a twin brother, and they’ll buy that you’ve got a regular old niece.”

Mabel hummed contemplatively, looking at Ford. “What do you think?” 

Ford sighed. It wasn’t as though they’d never used that lie before—it had honestly become regular, as it was easier to explain to various traveling partners—but as dim as the locals were, they were still more knowledgeable of interfamilial human relationships than extradimensional creatures. “They’ll have questions. We’d need to agree on a lot of details.”

He started to count on his fingers, voice deadpan. “Our names, our backstory, the identity of the”—and here he paused just a moment to sigh loudly —”very real female partner I’d have to have had to be your biological mother… Who, by the way, will have to have a damn good made-up reason for leaving the two of us.” His left pointer finger stilled on the top of his right pinkie, and he flexed his hand suddenly, looking at Dipper. “Do you happen to know if my Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons character sheets are still laying around? I’ll need to write this down.”

“Oh c’mon, Sixer, the lying’s the fun part,” Stan groaned. “Don’t ruin this for everyone.”

Dipper rolled over on the grass, tossing the dice into the air and catching them again. “You guys are close enough that the acting wouldn’t even be a stretch either,” he mused. 

“Wait a minute, hang on,” Stan said. “We’re missing a beat here. We’re twins. How come you’re a grand-nephew and she’s a regular? Is anyone going to buy that Ford’s the same age as me and has a teenager?”

Ford scratched at his temple, avoiding Stanley’s gaze as the latter looked around the yard. When no one shared his concerns, Stan crossed his arms. “You’re all dead to me.”

“What about names?” Mabel asked. “He’s going to need a name that will work for the nickname Ford. Me, personally, I’d  _ love  _ to go by Mabelline and just confuse everyone, but I don’t think that’s the kind of stealth operation we’re running here.”

“What, like Fiddleford?” Soos suggested. Ford’s hands tightened around the glass of water in his hands, but Mabel smoothly shook her head. 

“Nah, that’s no good if he still lives in town,” she said. Soos clicked his tongue and nodded at his drink. Mabel cast Ford a subtle wink before looking back at the game board, and he looked quickly down at his water to purse his lips, suppressing a grateful smile. He didn’t regret explaining his complicated past with Fiddleford to her, especially not when he’d had a near nervous breakdown upon encountering his former partner’s alternate version. Somehow, someone else knowing about it made him feel young again, as if by sharing his thoughts, he’d confirmed that he hadn’t made the whole thing up. 

Pacifica patted Waddles on the nose. “How about Wilford? Buford? Rutherford?”

“Rutherford! I like Rutherford,” Mabel said immediately. “It’s weird enough to fit you, and awful enough that no one will question why you use the second half as a nickname.”

Ford snorted. “Rutherford it is, then. But you’re right, there isn’t a good alternative for Mabel. Nothing that we could make sound somewhat familiar. I’d hate for you to decide on a fake name only to blow it because someone called for you and you weren’t paying attention.”

Dipper looked up. “I was thinking about that one,” he said slowly. “I mean, you  _ need _ a name you’re gonna respond to.”

“I’d just have to get used to it,” Mabel said. “I could be a Maddie if I tried. Maybe a Mavis.”

Dipper shrugged. “Or you could use a name that you  _ already _ respond to.” Ford raised an eyebrow as Mabel looked up at her brother. 

Dipper made a ‘hear me out’ face, and pressed, “No one in town, besides us right here, knows that Dipper isn’t my real name.” He hesitated for a split second, but it wasn’t the kind of silence of someone offering something that they didn’t want to give up. It was concerned silence, as though he thought his suggestion might offend her. “You could be Mason, if you wanted.”

Ford stifled another smile as Mabel blinked. “Are you serious?”

Dipper nodded. 

Next to him, Pacifica glanced between them. “Why would you already respond to it, though?”

Ford tipped the rim of his glass towards the kid. “You don’t have any siblings, do you?”

Pacifica shook her head cautiously. Ford shrugged and took a smug sip.

The kids drifted back to their board game, which was fine, except for the sizable hole in conversation that it left among those seated on the porch. It wasn’t that Ford was anti-social (there was a certain cocktail of necessary confidence and self-sufficiency that lone travelers in the universe had to develop) but small talk had always been a pain. Mabel’s preferred tactic of skipping traditional small talk and diving straight into things that a professional counselor wouldn’t touch before five sessions had been a relief. It was easier to deny a twelve year old information about his hubris than to stammer out an inane comment about the weather.

But this was no typical group of conversation partners, and that made it all the worse. As the silence continued, Ford grew painfully aware of Stan glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. Soos was actively fidgeting, and just as Ford was beginning to suspect that the palpable tension was killing him, he announced, “I know we’re off work, but I’m gonna go make sure the gift shop didn’t get screwed up with your portal thingamajig.”

Stan grunted in assent, and Soos disappeared into the house faster than Ford would have thought possible.

Stan glanced at him over his shoulder, then chuckled and settled back into the disgusting old sofa. Ford cleared his throat, but didn’t say anything, just finished his water and held the glass in his lap. Stanley had always been the first one to speak; he could never stand a silence for too long, not when he felt there was something to be said. Ford knew he’d break first, and so he waited.

Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, Stan cleared his throat. “Mabel needs clothes.”

_ She has clothes,  _ Ford bit back the retort. They’d left their supplies on 52, only bringing what fit into the smaller, more personal packs. The previous night, he himself had just done what had become normal if not a rare treat: wash his clothes in the sink, let them dry overnight, and changed back into them in the morning. Dipper’s intervention with the laundry machines had reminded him to take such action, though he did plan to take advantage of those feats of innovation across the hall. 

“She can’t go to school,” Ford said in lieu of a response.

Stan shook his head. “No, she can’t.” He fiddled with the tab of his can. “Does she have any clue about college? Anything she likes?”

“Stars, Stanley, she hasn’t had the chance to think about college,” Ford sighed. “Not beyond postulating on where Dipper was setting his sights.”

Stan frowned. “Oh.”

“That said,” Ford continued, because just because Mabel hadn’t been thinking about college didn’t mean  _ he  _ hadn’t been up half the night before ruminating on the now wide-open possibilities for her future, “I think we ought to encourage her to look at anything she wants, but I’m inclined to include creative institutions. As well as fields that utilize communication.”

“What, like art school?” The disdain in Stan’s voice was unmistakable, but when Ford looked at him with his most scathing ‘ _ Yes,  _ Stanley’ face, his brother’s expression had shifted into something thoughtful.

“Can’t say she won’t fit in with those tree-hugging freaks,” Stan said weightily. This, of course, was Stan’s idea of a resounding agreement. “But it’s expensive.”

“She’s bright enough to earn enough scholarship funding if she starts now.”

Stan shrugged. “Can’t say no to that. Dipper did pretty good for himself.”

A thought occurred to Ford. “What happened to their parents’ accounts? Did they have any savings?”

Stan’s expression hardened slightly. “Went to Dipper, but the courts say he can’t access it til he turns eighteen. Shermie’s holding onto it for now because apparently I’m ‘not trustworthy around large sums of unmonitored cash’.” He made sardonic air quotes, then laughed ruefully. “Which is true, but still. Rude as hell for the judge to say.”

Ford couldn’t help his snort. At least Stan was self aware. 

“Clothes,” Stan pressed. “I figure you—you’re in your old room, I never touched any of your stuff—well, I mean, um, in there, anyway. If they’re not falling apart, you’ve still got your sweaters and all. I figure we can give the kids some cash and let them go shop.”

Ford raised an eyebrow. “What, just on their own? You’re not afraid they’ll bleed you dry?”

“They’re seventeen,” Stan countered. “Dipper knows how to pinch pennies, he’s not an idiot. And I said  _ cash,  _ s’not like I’m sending them off with a credit card.”

“Credit card?” Ford echoed. “Those stuck around?”

Stan stared at him for a minute. “Jesus, Sixer, for a space agent, you gotta work on your poker face.”

“I have a phenomenal poker face. And I’m not a space agent.”

Stan shrugged. “Well, you can’t go around making comments like that.”

“I asked a question!”

“Asking if credit cards are normal is like—it’d be like if someone commented about a sunset and you said ‘oh, it’s still doing that?’” Stan shook his head in disbelief. “This place is a lot different than the last time you were here.”

“I think I can take technological improvements in stride, Stanley, I’m not a child,” Ford said waspishly. “Besides, Gravity Falls is hardly Silicon Valley, it can’t have erupted too much.”

Stan cracked his knuckles. “I’m not talking about Gravity Falls. I mean Earth.” He spread his hands as if to indicate the entirety of the planet. “And I’m serious. You can’t go around acting like you’ve never seen a cell phone before or your cover is as good as gone.”

“Of course I know what a cell phone is,” Ford said scathingly. As  _ if  _ he wouldn’t be well-versed in Tesla’s most prized project, and the disgrace done to the scientist by capitalism and Edison. “Listen, Stanley, I understand your concern, but I promise I’m no security risk. I know how to roll with a punch.”

Stan’s hand made a loose fist, as though he were contemplating a spontaneous assessment of Ford’s idiom, but he flexed it out as soon as the thought crossed Ford’s mind. Ford decided that it would be more constructive to look anywhere else, and so fixed his gaze on the children, where Dipper was holding out his hand and Mabel was reluctantly passing him slips of brightly colored paper.

“I guess dimension-jumping would teach even you that, huh?” Stan said from beside him, tone dry but inoffensive. Ford didn’t look at him, but he did give a light chuckle. 

“It’s a good thing I had thirty years of practice before that one showed up,” Ford replied, nodding at Mabel. 

Stan actually laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, she would throw you for a loop, wouldn’t she? Hey, how  _ did  _ you find her, if the place is as spread out as you say it is?”

Ford’s teasing mood faded. He opened his mouth, then stopped abruptly. “I—it’s not a great story,” he said, hoping that would be enough.

Next to him, Stan tensed. “Oh, god, was she hurt?”

“Not in any extravagant fashion, no, she just—I got word that Bill had her, so I went to see.”

Stan raised a brow. “You got word that your archenemy had your great-niece and you just believed it? I’m not dumb enough to think that you’d be that gullible.”

Ford glanced uncomfortably at Mabel, to make sure that her attention was on the game. “I’m not. I wasn’t. In fact, it’s a very fortunate thing that they didn’t inform me of our relation, because I likely wouldn’t have gone. I would have thought it was some baseless lie, and I would have gotten as far from Bill’s realm as possible, and she would be dead.”

Stan faltered. “Wait, you didn’t know?”

“No!” Ford struggled not to raise his voice. “No, I didn’t. I had no idea that you’d managed to restart the portal. I thought you would have heeded my warnings and taken the damn thing apart. One of Bill’s associates found me and told me that he’d caught a kid from my dimension, and if I didn’t get her out of there in six hours, they’d kill her. That’s all I knew.” He braced his hands on the back of his neck, feeling ridiculously guilty. “Afterwards, it made sense. Once she told me about you, about all of this. I  _ knew  _ that there weren’t any organic openings of our dimension, but at the time, it made more sense that one had ruptured into existence than to consider the alternative.” He nodded at the ground for emphasis. “And I  _ knew  _ that. I was just… well, panicked isn’t the right word for it, but it illustrates my point well enough.”

Stan was watching him with an indecipherable expression. Ford would have preferred emotion of any variety over this: a shout, a laugh, a frown, he wasn’t picky. But when Stan finally spoke, his tone was suspicious. “Why do you sound  _ guilty  _ talking about this?”

“It was reckless, it was stupid,” Ford said immediately. “And…”

_ And I almost didn’t do it. And it makes me sound like a better man than I am. _

“...and it was too close of a call,” he decided. “I don’t like dwelling on close calls.”

The suspicion in Stan’s eyes softened, but Ford didn’t maintain eye contact long enough to see it give way to concern. He glanced back at Mabel. “She doesn’t know. I don’t want her to know.”

“Hmph. How’d you explain…” Stan trailed off, gesturing between their faces.

This was a more comfortable conversation. “She tried to bite me for being an off-brand version of you, but once we got past that initial barrier, she was very trusting.” Ford once again toyed with the possibility that she’d figured it out on her own, but he had never brought it up, and she had never asked. “She and Dipper had already learned about your, ah, checkered past, so my existence was a relief. Filled in some blanks, I guess.”

Stan took this in stride. “Yeah. Dipper wasn’t so quick to trust me, after everything. I mean, kid’s sharp as a tack, he’d barely warmed up to me before that, so it took a while.” He chuckled humorlessly.

The absolutely insane nature of this conversation made Ford even more surprised to realize that empathy was beginning to stir in his chest. He coughed, looking at the kids instead of Stan. “He seems like a smart young man.”

“Too smart for his own good, more like,” Stan grumbled. “I swear, if I hadn’t felt you were still kicking around on the other side of the portal, I’d have sworn you’d reincarnated or something. Kid started sniffing around for weird shit as soon as they got here. He found your third journal in about five minutes, then hid it from me for another month.”

Ford watched as the boy in question hung his head in mock-defeat and moved his silver piece to the jail spot while the girls taunted him good-naturedly. All of Ford’s knowledge of Dipper, up until twenty-four hours ago, had been given to him via Mabel. According to said semi-reliable source, he had mentally summarized Dipper as an intelligent yet awkward, introverted and dry, somewhat wimpy but brave when it mattered boy, who needed to be reminded to shower every now and again. Mabel had also been firm in her conviction that Dipper downright idolized Ford, but the notion had been so disconcerting that Ford had blocked it out immediately. If that kid had read  _ Journal Three _ —Ford’s most disorganized, most fear-driven, sloppy piece of writing—and decided to put him on a pedestal… well, he was twelve, so his inexperience in judging character was understandable, but Ford still didn’t like it. 

Initially, after learning about Dipper, Ford had been worried about the quality of the boy’s care if he was going to be stuck with Stan, and had gone so far as to voice his concern. In doing so, he learned two things. One, Dipper would be going back to their parents, so it didn’t matter, and two, he got a taste of what Mabel’s loyalty looked like in action ( _ Stan might be OLD AND GROSS, but he LOVES ALL OF US, and you DON’T get to be mean to him just because you had a fight THIRTY YEARS AGO, so you should just GROW UP!). _

Ford’s conversation with Dipper last night had served as a reminder of what Mabel had shared, and an opportunity for Ford to begin to understand his nephew independently. Of course a boy who had been obsessed with things of unknown origin would feel slightly jealous that his anomaly-apathetic sister would be sucked into what he considered, even to a tiny degree, to be the adventure of a lifetime. Jealousy was normal. But Ford was determined to nip that source of friction in the bud. He trusted that Dipper was smart enough to extrapolate that despite Mabel’s optimism, it hadn’t been good, but he also knew that the kids were going to have to learn about one another all over again. Ford didn’t want to see either one of them hurt due to a lack of communication.

_ Lack of communication.  _ He gave a small exhale, a rueful shake of his head. It sounded too hoaky to give voice to—what did he look like, a shrink?—but as Mabel liked to remind him, humans weren’t mind readers, so he needed to say what he was thinking  _ out loud. _ When  _ he  _ had countered that he  _ did  _ have a mind reader, it was just back in the basement of the lab, she hadn’t missed a beat.  _ Well, as soon as we get back, you can just get your little brain do-hickey out and you don’t have to talk to me anymore, but I want weekly thought reports.  _ It was almost a detriment that she was so easy to talk to—more than once, Ford had had to stop himself from unloading things that no child should have to hear, even one as emotionally astute as his niece. The loneliness of thirty years, the guilt at endangering the world, the guilt at endangering  _ her _ —he was a grown man, he could process those on his own. The best he could do was give Mabel the advice he wished someone had given him. 

Hmm. Shrink. Maybe he should go see one of those. 

Instead of that, he said, “With what I know and what Mabel knows, we’ve patched together what we think is a decent likeness of how you pulled all of this off, but what about Dipper?”

“What  _ about _ Dipper?” Stan repeated, eyebrow raising.

“You were grifting for how many years?” Ford said. Stan shook his head slightly, as though he couldn’t understand why Ford was saying this. Ford pressed on. “You were practiced in lying to people. Misdirection, and what have you.”

Stan gave him an unimpressed look. “You’re making me sound like a street magician.”

“But Dipper was twelve,” Ford continued. “How did he fare?”

Stan reclined again, scratching at his temple with raised eyebrows. “Hmph. Well, I mean, the whole town thought his sister had just been eaten by a bear, so nobody blamed him for keeping to himself. You, I had to pretend to be you, taking your name and all, but that was never the move. Dipper couldn’t do it. I don’t blame him. But, uh, he was mopey and all, in front of people, and then when no one was around, he was just focused on the portal. I tried to keep his lab hours to a minimum, though. Being down there messes with your head.”

Ford snorted. “ _ That _ is an understatement.” 

He earned a reciprocal laugh from Stan. 

The screen door opened behind them, and Ford glanced over his shoulder to see Soos coming back outside. Had he been listening at the door? Who even was this employee, and what had he done to earn Stan’s trust, unsupervised inside his house? Ford returned Soos’s cheerful smile and watched as he joined the kids on the lawn, sprawling out and accepting Waddles’s nose in his face as greeting. 

“So, tomorrow,” Stan said. “I figure Soos, Paz, and I can hold down the fort for the day. Dipper can take you to the mall.”

“Stanley, please, I know how to drive,” Ford began, but Stan ‘huh-bup-bup’ed and held up a finger.

“Not a chance, Sixer, I saw how you drove  _ before  _ you were off the road for thirty years. Dipper’s gonna drive, and you’re gonna deal.”

Before Ford’s dry stare could do anything, Pacifica’s voice from the lawn was making them both look out. “Actually, can I go, too?”

Ford glanced back at Stan, who squinted. “Why?”

“Be _ cause,” _ Pacifica retorted. After she’d paused long enough to establish that ‘because’ was in and of itself a complete sentence, she continued, “I need some things, and besides, girls shop together. Right, Mabel?”

“Right,” Mabel agreed instantly. “Grunkle Stan, can she?”

Stan’s squint intensified before he scoffed and sat back. “Fine, but I’m not paying for your stuff.”

“Paz, it’s your turn,” Dipper said quickly, shoving the dice towards her. Mabel stopped his hand, eyes darting over the board, then stuck her hand out to her brother. “You’re not as slick as you think you are, bro-bro. Rent money.”

Ford looked back at Stan as the kids began to mock-bicker over the game. “There’s also the matter of the rift,” he said quietly, frowning. 

Clearly, he hadn’t been quiet enough, because Mabel piped up, “Yeah, but as long as it’s downstairs and like, not cracking, it should be okay, right?”

Ford blinked. “Well—yes, I suppose.” She wasn’t  _ incorrect,  _ but it had been a long time since she’d been content to set aside a Bill related problem for another day. Of everyone here, she knew the risks. 

“What can we even do about it?” Dipper asked.

That was a valid question, one Ford could consider. “I’m not sure yet. Until we figure something out, I suppose Mabel’s method will do.”

He gave her another quizzical look, but her attention was already back on the game. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys see me exploring themes of getting to know people you love but don’t really know, no you didn’t 🧡 As always, you guys have no idea how much your questions and comments brighten my day! Stay safe, wear a mask, love you!


	12. *Insert Copyright Conscious Nod to Madonna Here*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small flashback and a day at the mall. Mixed POV: Mabel, then Pacifica

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in a cold sweat after whats-up-my-dudes drew Ford and Mabel on tumblr. Note to y'all: if you ever want to jumpstart me into writing mode, art is the best way to do it

_September 12, 2012_

As soon as she stepped through the breach, she regretted her lack of outer layer.

“It’s cold here,” Mabel announced in a brilliant display of environmental processing as icy flakes clumped on her eyelashes. Snow crunched beneath her boots as she tried to find a patch that wouldn’t soak through the leather. Gvalnir’s boots had proved to be weatherproof so far, but she still didn’t want to take any chances when it came to the dryness of her socks.

“So it is,” Grunkle Ford said, lifting his goggles against the snow. “Come on, get your coat on, we don’t have far to go.”

“It’s at the bottom of my bag,” Mabel realized. “It was so hot in the last one--”

“Yes, yes,” Ford said impatiently. “Hurry up, get it out.”

Trying not to wince at his tone, Mabel kicked at the snow until she had a suitable patch on wet brown grass on which to set her pack down. Her fingers were already going cold by the time she tugged it out and shrugged it over her shoulders. The coat Gvalnir had been able to spare for her was about seven sizes too big, so automatically, both adults had taken one look at it and announced that ‘it’ll be _great_ for growing into.’ All it did now, though, was make a big air pocket between her shirt and the leather, so she slung her bag onto her shoulders and wrapped her arms around her waist to minimize the cold. “I’m ready.”

Ford gave her a look and half a smile before setting off. For a minute, Mabel tried to match his pace, but it was hard to gauge where she should step on the snowy blanket, and she swiftly resorted to following close behind him and walking in the indents he created.

It had been nearly seven weeks since she’d been pulled through Grunkle Stan’s portal. Forty-four days away from home. At least, she thought so. Mabel didn’t know how long Bill had had her in a dream-bubble, but she didn’t think it had been more than a day or two, so forty-four couldn’t be too off from the actual count. Either way, it had been too long. 

At least she had Ford, she reasoned. Imagine if she were actually all alone out here! 

He was odd, she could tell that much right off the bat, but at the risk of sounding like a pseudo-inspiration iPod wallpaper, normal people were boring anyway. He reminded her a lot of a cooler, grown-up version of Dipper--constantly lost in thought, chasing every academic rabbit trail he found, but doing so confidently--but the family resemblance didn’t end there. Once, when telling her about some natural disasters in dimension 119#a, he’d wiggled his fingers as though he was telling a spooky campfire story, and Mabel had been so conflicted as to whether or not the Stan-ism should make her laugh or cry that she’d just sat there, dumbstruck. He didn’t seem to want to talk his feelings, but he had no issue talking about whatever he was thinking about, and Mabel could work with that. Besides, even if he was a little grumpy and awkward at times, the important thing was that he seemed to like her. If they were going to be traveling buddies for the foreseeable future, as Ford seemed to think, then she was glad that she could make him laugh. He had been lonely for so long, the least Mabel could do was try to be the best conversation partner possible.

“So, why are we here?” She asked, teeth chattering as she looked up at the back of Ford’s head. He paused in his walking, and she stopped herself before she ran into him. She cocked her head, curious. “What is it?”

He was removing a tube scarf from around his neck, which seemed like a pretty stupid thing to do considering the temperature. Mabel opened her mouth to say something else as he turned to face her, dropping to one knee, but his expression was so stern that the words died in her throat. 

“For future reference,” he said, tugging his scarf down over Mabel’s head ( _Oh_ . _Not stupid,_ Mabel realized, trying to listen beyond the muffling fabric), “If we’re walking in an unknown environment and I stop without warning, that’s generally not the best time to say something loudly.”

“Oh.” Unknown environment. She scrunched her nose against the cold as Ford got the scarf past her face. “Are there bears out here, you think?” 

He gave her a quizzical look. “No. I sincerely doubt that there are bears out here, actually. But bears are far from the multiverse’s most fearsome predators.”

“Oh,” Mabel said again, because honestly, how else was she supposed to respond to that? “Thanks, for this.”

Ford tugged the scarf up over her nose, then nodded, satisfied. As he stood back up, Mabel hesitated. “Wait, what about you? Won’t you be cold?”

“I’ll get another one,” he assured her. “Which leads me to answer your first question, actually.”

“Are we going shopping?”

“In a way,” Ford responded after a brief hesitation. 

“Do we even have money?”

“Not… necessarily, no.”

“I’m not even sure what kind of shopping you could even mean, then.”

Ford shrugged. “Okay, fine, I lied. We’re going to steal.”

“Gasp!” 

Ford didn’t stop walking, but he did glance at her over his shoulder. “Did you just articulate the word ‘gasp’ instead of actually gasping?”

“Grunkle Ford, we can’t steal! It’s not right!”

Ford sighed. “I’m not disagreeing with you, but if it makes you feel any better, we won’t get caught.”

“Why would that make me feel better?!” Mabel stopped in her tracks (well, Ford’s tracks, really) and put a hand to the cloth over her nose, yanking it off of her head. “Am I wearing stolen goods right now?”

“Put it back on,” Ford said.

“No!” She held it away from her body as though it were toxic. “It’s about principle!”

Ford raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? And how are your principles going to hold up when the frostbite sets in?”

Mabel hesitated, sniffing once against the cold.

“Go on, put it back on,” Ford said again, kinder this time. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but if it’s steal and live or be honest and die, I know what I’m picking.”

“Well, I don’t know what I’m picking yet,” Mabel grumbled, though she pulled the scarf back over her face and exhaled heavily a couple of times to warm her face up. 

“You, my dear, are fortunate,” Ford said, turning back around to continue walking once he was satisfied that her display of morality was over and the scarf was secure again. “You don’t have to yet.”

Mabel jogged a step to match his cadence. “How do you mean?”

“Easy,” Ford said. “I’m picking for you, and since I’ve already gone through all the trouble of keeping you alive up until this point, I’m not going to let you spoil it with ethics any time soon.” He gave her a grin over his shoulder, face red from the cold, and it took a moment for Mabel to grin back, allowing a small laugh. His sense of humor took some getting used to--Mabel still wasn’t sure they had a ton of common ground, but perhaps he would appreciate a good pun. She pocketed the idea.

>>>>> • <<<<<

_October 20, 2016_

Getting into the car had been an odd sort of shuffle. Pacifica had become so accustomed to sitting next to Dipper that she’d gone for the passenger’s seat on reflex, and had had to accommodate with an awkward sort of sidestep to the back seat when she remembered that Ford was coming with them.

The door shut heavily behind her as she sat down on the bench and buckled in. To her left, Mabel was practically vibrating with energy. “I missed the old girl! Dipper, when did you even learn how to drive a car?” 

“Sophomore year?” He stretched out the first ‘o’ in sophomore, turning it into a question as he caught Pacifica’s eye in the rearview. She shrugged. She’d done driver’s ed through the high school, but gas was expensive. Besides, driving the slinky Rolls-Royce her dad had managed to cling to only felt like an invitation for fresh ridicule. 

“That’s awesome,” Mabel said. “To be honest, I always thought I’d be the first of us to get my license.” Dipper gave a small, nervous chuckle, then fell quiet, tapping his fingers on the wheel. Pacifica offered a nervous smile at the pregnant silence, then promptly jumped at Stanford closing his door. 

“Well, then,” he said, buckling his seatbelt and looking expectantly at Dipper before glancing into the backseat. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing thirty years of urban development all in one trip, but let’s get this over with.”

Pacifica sucked her teeth. “I’m not sure Gravity Falls counts as ‘urban’, but I get what you mean. Don’t worry, this place hasn’t really changed much since the nineties, so it can’t be too far from what you remember.”

She and Dipper had discussed this the night before. Ultimately, it didn’t really sound like the best plan, taking an old dude who had been away from the planet for three decades to a quote-unquote _new_ suburban mall, but it was close, convenient, and it wouldn’t break the bank. As they drove through town, Mabel stared delightedly out the window, drinking in the sights. Stanford seemed just as interested, but less enthused--occasionally, he would make a sound of surprise, or hum thoughtfully, but he didn’t say anything. Dipper was running commentary.

“Susan runs Greasy’s, the library’s still up and going, Blubbs and Durland are in charge of the police--oh, McGucket’s running his campaign from that junkyard, that’s probably new.”

“Campaign?” Stanford echoed. “Is he still playing?”

“Playing?” Dipper said. “No, it’s not--it’s a _presidential_ campaign, Great-Uncle Ford.”

Pacifica couldn’t see his face, but it was impossible to miss the way the dude’s shoulders jumped. Dipper had told her what he knew of his uncle’s partnership with McGucket, showed her all of the writings about _F_ in the journals, so it didn’t shock Pacifica to see that hearing about his ex-partner made the guy jumpy. 

“Did he get better?” Mabel asked. “After the whole red hood cult?”

“The Society of the Blind Eye?” Dipper clarified.

Mabel nodded. “Yeah, them.”

Dipper scratched at the back of his head. “I mean, yeah. His memories came back to him, for the most part. He reconnected with his son--you remember Tate from the lake? Yeah, I know, I didn’t believe it either--and then after Pacifica’s dad got caught, he bought the Northwest mansion. It’s a shelter now, for hitchhikers and anyone who needs a place to stay.”

“That’s so cool,” Mabel said reverently, throwing a weighty glance at her uncle, who ignored it just as pointedly. “It sounds like he’s doing great for himself.”

“Oh, look, the mall,” Stanford said. 

Pacifica glanced between them, brow arched, but didn’t say anything. Maybe before, she would have been surprised by--well, by how _close_ they were--but the night they’d come back had made her reevaluate her stance. 

>>>>> • <<<<<

_October 19, 2016_

“Pacifica?”

Pacifica glanced up. There was Mabel, hair wrapped in her towel, standing uncertainly in the door. She swung her legs off of her mattress. “What’s up?”

Mabel lifted her bandaged hand. “Do you know if we have any burn cream anywhere?”

“Burn--” Pacifica cut herself off, shaking her head. “Um, maybe. Stan started keeping medicine stuff in the kitchen when Dipper started learning to cook. Come on, let’s go look.”

Pacifica moved quietly down the stairs, as she usually did, but it was surprising to hear how soft Mabel’s footfalls were as well. She felt loud in comparison.

The light buzzed when she flicked the switch, and she pushed past Mabel to rifle through the collection of expired ointments under the sink. “This one seems like it’ll do,” Pacifica mused, holding it up to the light. “What do you think? It’s only been two years since the expiration date.”

“God, I remember that being here the last time I was,” Mabel joked. “Yeah, it’s perfect.”

Pacifica grabbed a bandage, remembering how she’d patched up Dipper just a couple of nights before and really starting to feel like a nurse, then ushered Mabel back up to the attic. She shut the door behind them, turned to face Mabel, and promptly realized that she had exactly zero expertise in dealing with burns.

Her panic must have shown on her face, because Mabel actually laughed. “It’s okay, I can do it myself. I just needed the stuff.”

“That’s good for you, then, because I’m thoroughly incompetent here.” Pacifica gratefully sat on the foot of Mabel’s bed, the ointment and bandages on top of the sheets between them. She watched Mabel unwrap her hand, chatted with her as she dressed the wound. As Mabel focused on her hand, though, Pacifica noticed a scar, not fresh but not exactly faded, either, clawing over her left arm. Before she could stop herself, she blurted, “What did that to you?”

Mabel glanced up at Pacifica, then at her arm. Pacifica covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m so sorry, oh, that was so rude.”

“It’s okay,” Mabel said, securing her fresh bandage and sitting back on her good hand. “It was a long time ago.” She paused, and for a second, Pacifica wondered if that was that, but then Mabel said, “I took a stupid job, and I got hurt.” She looked up, a half-teasing light in her eyes. “You should have seen the other guy. Besides, the worst part was stitching myself up afterwards.”

“Yourself? What, is your other uncle squeamish or something?”

This time, Mabel did flinch. “Nah, he wasn’t there. We got split up for a while.”

“Oh.” Oh God. Oh God. What was she supposed to say here? “Maybe I should stop talking now.”

Mabel shook her head. “You didn’t know! You’re seriously fine.”

Pacifica seriously needed to shut up, but instead of doing that, she said, “Was it lonely out there?”

Something in Mabel’s expression tightened, but the tension vanished just as quickly as it appeared, and she was shaking her head. “It wasn’t so bad. I had Ford, after all. He was actually alone, for a lot longer than I was out there.”

“Well, yeah, but he’s like, old,” Pacifica said. “Didn’t you miss kids our age?”

The look Mabel gave her didn’t need any words to accompany it, but they came anyway. “What do you want me to say to that? Of course I did. But they weren’t there, so thinking about it was just a distraction. I’m tired.”

>>>>> • <<<<<

They tackled the mall in two teams: boys and girls. The plan was simple: use the cash Stan had grudgingly allotted to Dipper to get enough clothes for the newcomers to be comfortable for the fall, spend the resulting change on a food-court lunch, and then, upon their return, apologetically inform Mr. Mystery that there hadn’t been any leftover money from the first phase of the plan. They’d split at the tacky carousel, which Ford had eyed with interest, and Pacifica now found herself squinting thoughtfully between Mabel and a rack of bras.

She’d ended up settling for shoving four or five at Mabel and telling her to try them on, sitting cross-legged outside the dressing room and waiting. When Mabel announced that all of them fit perfectly, Pacifica had sighed and told her to open the door. After that fiasco, both of them were relieved to move on to easier components. Mabel was satisfied with sifting through a stack of graphic tees, grinning at the cheesy screenprints of cats in sunglasses. 

“These are great!” She exclaimed, holding one up. The DJing cat was accentuated by a blocky “Pawesome Beats”.

Pacifica couldn’t help herself from raising a brow, but shrugged. “If you’ll wear it. They’re your clothes.”

Mabel grinned, but the smile was chased off by a scowl as she spotted the price tag. “Wh—twenty dollars for this?” She said, eyeing the shirt skeptically now. “It feels like tissue paper, it’s not worth that!”

She folded it sloppily and put it back down, crossing to where Pacifica was and rummaging through the plain white shirts that hung there. Pacifica reached over to properly fold the cat shirt. 

Mabel picked up two shirts, comparing them side by side. Pacifica leaned back on one leg, comparing them, and opened her mouth to say that the one on Mabel’s left was probably better. Before she could, Mabel was scoffing and hanging them both back up. “Let’s look at jeans.”

“Ooh, we could get you some jeggings,” Pacifica suggested. 

“Jeggings?” Mabel echoed. 

“Y’know,” Pacifica said, despite the fact that no, she probably didn’t. “Jeans and leggings. Mixed.” She meshed her fingers for emphasis. “They’re in right now.”

Mabel nodded, a little weirded out. “Um. Okay, I guess, but I think normal jeans will be fine.”

Apparently, none of the jeans fit Mabel’s standards. “These are all gonna cut off somebody’s circulation!” She complained, gesturing at the tiny ankle-holes of a pair of skinny jeans. “And since when did denim become so stretchy?”

Across the store, the anti-theft alarm rang out. Pacifica glanced at it, but it was just some old woman. She busied herself with holding up a size to Mabel, trying to guess whether they’d work or if she’d need a size up. She’d just have to try them both. 

She glanced up from Mabel’s hips to see that the girl attached to them had tensed, eyes scanning the front of the store. Her knuckles were white around the pants in her hands. 

“Mabel?” Pacifica said. “You okay?”

“Um—yeah! Yeah, I’m fine,” Mabel said after a minute. “Just a little deja vu there for a minute.” She folded the jeans anxiously over her forearm. “Pacifica, I don’t like any of this stuff. It’s all made cheap and priced high. Is there, like, a thrift store near here, or anything?”

Pacifica held back a “Sure, Stan” and nodded. “On the second floor.”

Mabel put the jeans back on the shelf. “Great. Let’s go.”

The thrift shop wasn’t Pacifica’s favorite place to shop, but she had to admit that it worked in a pinch. At any rate, Mabel seemed much more comfortable here, and quickly picked out clothes that seemed to make her happier than the cat shirts. Before long, bags in hand, they were done shopping, and found a table in the food court. It was busy for Gravity Falls--it was a Saturday afternoon, after all--but the most notable group of people was a matching-jacket-wearing sports team near the Wendy’s.

Mabel looked at the boys across the food court, a grin splitting her face. “Wanna go flirt with them with me?”

“What?” Pacifica said, alarmed. 

Mabel nodded at them. “It looks like they’re a sports team passing through. See, it says Seattle High School Soccer on a couple of their hoodies.”

Pacifica hesitated. No, she didn’t want to go flirt with strangers. Flirting with strangers was a learned skill, used for waiting tables and nothing more. “You don’t even know those guys,” she tried. 

Mabel fixed her with a serious look. “Exactly. It’s been four years since I’ve been able to turn this charm on a human person. I’m rusty, and they’re low-stakes practice! Please?”

That reasoning actually managed to calm her. These people didn’t know her—her family, her face, or her flip-flopped fortunes. By that logic, they were already leaps and bounds ahead of the boys at Gravity Falls High School. Well, if Pacifica was being really honest, she only cared about the opinion of one boy at Gravity Falls High School. And, when she thought about _that_ , she was pretty sure he’d be upset to learn she’d let his newly returned sister approach a group of strangers all on her own. 

“Okay,” she relented. Immediately, Mabel grabbed her arm, and they were walking up like this was the most normal thing in the world. A couple of the boys looked up, and Mabel took that opportunity to stand casually beside their table. 

“Hey!” She said. The guys looked at one another. “Hi,” said one, cautious. He fiddled with the sleeve of his jacket. “Can we help you?”

“Not unless you can think of a problem,” Mabel replied. Pacifica inwardly facepalmed. If she started busting out intellectual wordplay, this wouldn’t end well for her. “I’m just in a talkative mood. You guys in town for a game?”

“No, just passing through,” the other said. He squinted at Pacifica. “Hey, I recognize you.”

“Me?” Pacifica said. 

“Yeah,” he said. “My cousin runs for her school in Bend, I saw the photos from her meet earlier this week.” He glanced at Mabel, reading the logo on the thigh of Dipper’s sweatpants. “I didn’t see you in any pictures, though.”

“Ah, I missed that meet,” Mabel said smoothly, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “I was out of town, just got back yesterday. I’m May, by the way. This is Pacifica.”

“Kyler,” said the blond boy. “And that’s Marshall.”

“Sup,” Marshall said. 

Pacifica really didn’t have a choice but to sit next to Mabel, who was now leaning forward on her elbows and playing with a strand of her own hair. Pacifica busied herself with neatly aligning her phone and wallet with the edge of the tabletop as Mabel spoke. “So, you guys live in Seattle?” She said. “I’ve never been. Is it nice?”

“Yeah,” Marshall said. “Rains a lot, though.”

“It was better before those vampire books got big,” Kyler said distastefully. “Now there’s like, busloads of middle aged women that come through to see where they filmed and stuff.”

Pacifica blanched—sure, Mabel was around for the Twilight craze, but pop culture was still a no-no—but Mabel seemed to take it in stride. “Yeah, Twilight mommies always freaked me out. So if you guys aren’t here for a game, where are you headed?”

“Back home,” Kyler said. He exchanged a proud look with Marshall. “We just got seventh in a tournament, so. No big.”

“Ooh, that’s awesome,” Mabel said. She glanced at Pacifica, and Pacifica realized that if the conversation had turned to high school sports, Mabel had very little to offer. 

“What position do you play?” Pacifica tried. 

“Me? I’m a striker,” Kyler said confidently. “Marshall’s wing.”

“Really?” Pacifica said. She opened her mouth to ask about what kind of conditioning their coaches had them do, because she definitely would have pegged them as defense, but before she could, Mabel was glancing over her shoulder and laughing. 

“Okay, well, I guess we have to go,” she said, tapping Pacifica’s arm conspiratorially as she stood. “Nice meeting you!”

“Wait! You’re cute. Can I get your Snap?” Kyler said. 

Mabel stared at him blankly. 

Pacifica pushed Mabel away from her chair. “Her parents are super strict, she doesn’t have one.”

“Well, how about you?”

“I don’t have a phone,” she said, leaning forward to pick it up off of the table. “Bye!”

“Why did you bail like that?” Pacifica asked.

Mabel jerked her head to where Pacifica could now see Stanford and Dipper near the carousel. “They’re waiting.”

Pacifica tugged on her wrist. “No, Mabel, if you’re going to bail every time the conversation turns to something you don’t know, you can’t go starting conversations with strangers.”

Mabel pulled her hand back. “I wasn’t _bailing._ They’re waiting.” She gave a tiny shake of her head, as though the concept of them waiting should have been more important to Pacifica. 

Pacifica let it go, but it still rubbed at her. Not that she cared about those dumbass boys bragging about seventh place, that, she couldn’t care less about. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“Did you find everything?” Dipper asked, snapping her out of her thoughts. Pacifica put a pin in it. Maybe Mabel just needed to work this stuff out with a professional. God, what Pacifica would give to see a therapist. 

“Yeah, we went to the Needle and Thread, so, she’s really set. And we’ve got lunch money.”

Mabel lunged forward to grab her brother’s arm. “Come on. If I don’t have a good old-fashioned American milkshake in front of me in the next five minutes, I’ll scream.” 

Dipper allowed himself to be dragged off, shouting to Pacifica that he’d order food for everyone, leaving her to stand awkwardly with Stanford, who was once more studying the carousel. “Um, we got a table,” she offered.

“Hmm? Oh, lead the way,” he said. 

“Did it go okay? Find everything you need?” 

Stanford looked away from the carousel to frown at the tabletop. “Things are more expensive now than they used to be.”

“Inflation’s, like, a big deal,” Pacifica said. She put Mabel’s bags down beside her chair, then drummed her hands on the tabletop. “Wanna hear a high schooler’s botched attempt to summarize the economic highs and lows of the last thirty years?”

“Not really,” Stanford said. “I’m sure you’d do a wonderful job, but economics was never interesting. The stock market is a joke, and everyone knows the uber-wealthy make the rules.” This was all said in a distracted, half-present voice--he’d twisted in his seat to study the damn carousel again.

“Sir, it’s a merry-go-round,” Pacifica said. “They put it in a year ago. You know, twenty years after every mall in America had one already.”

“I know what a merry-go-round is, and don’t call me sir, I’m not that old,” Stanford said. “I’m looking at the construction of the horses. They’re made with a very specific material--I wouldn’t expect you to know it--”

“Oh, the alien stuff?” Pacifica asked, surprised. _That_ got his attention.

“You--”

“Yeah, Mr. McGucket showed us,” Pacifica said. “Well, he showed Dipper, anyway. That was before we were friends. Seeing the basement hit him where it hurt, but being in the alien ship was fine, I guess. He donated this thing, built it himself and all.”

Stanford was gaping. Pacifica estimated that he’d processed maybe twenty percent of her words. “You’re familiar with the ship, then?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t been in a while,” Pacifica said dismissively. It had actually been her first supernatural adventure with Dipper since he’d solved her home’s ghost infestation in the summer of 2012. Two years later, she’d never have guessed she’d be deep under the town in an ancient extraterrestrial ship with him and Wendy Corduroy, but life was weird that way.

“Why would you…?”

“Dipper needed help carrying parts for the portal, and Stan was working,” she shrugged. The worst part of the venture, by far, had been the security system. McGucket had warned them about the silver ‘frighten-detectin’ mechanisms’, as he’d called them, and it had taken all of her strength to put on her best customer service voice and demand that the bots leave because they were closed for business, thank you very much.

Stanford blinked, then shut his mouth. “Well, then.”

Pacifica offered a smile. He returned it absently, eyes already trailing the perimeter of the food court. Something he saw must have drawn him back to the present, because he suddenly sat up straighter in his seat. “Oh, god, I’m--I can’t believe I forgot. Is there a pharmacy in this mall?”

“For Mabel’s burn?” Pacifica guessed. “We patched it up last night, don’t worry. I googled it yesterday. As long as she stays hydrated, I think she’ll be fine.”

Stanford, after a pause, said, “You’re observant.”

“Thank you,” she replied, because it was obvious from the way he said it that he considered the statement high praise.

Stanford spoke again. “Now… what’s ‘googled’?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! As always, I love seeing your comments, and I hope you're staying safe!


	13. Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel receives Even More unfortunate news. Mabel's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this time, but it's ripe! This poor girl.

Really, up until she watched Dipper set his backpack down on the table late Sunday afternoon, the idea of school hadn’t crossed Mabel’s mind since Friday. 

“Ooh, what’re you doing?” She asked, speaking up so her voice would carry above the sound of Stan’s black-and-white TV show. She was sitting on the floor with Waddles (who, after much cajoling on Mabel’s part, had been granted indefinite reentry into the shack), leaning against Stan’s chair, which had been great until Stan had started commenting on her project. Mabel had been delighted to find old knitting supplies tucked into a corner of the attic, and although she was rusty, she was pleased with the progress on her first sweater since middle school. Stan, on the other hand, had laughed and asked what poor fuschia animal she’d slaughtered. She completed a purl, then crossed her needles, lowering them to rest in her lap with a soft clink. 

“Homework,” Dipper replied after a moment, pulling a binder out. “It’s nothing crazy, just a calc sheet I need to finish before class tomorrow.”

“Ooh, nerd shit,” Mabel enthused. Stan kicked her lightly in the side in reprimand. She glanced up at him, waggling one needle threateningly, before continuing, “So… you’re in twelfth grade this year?”

Dipper opened the binder and flipped to a fresh sheet of paper, already chewing on a pen. Mabel was oddly relieved to see that that habit had stuck with him. “Yep,” he said, glancing at her before looking back at the paper.

The sweater could wait, she decided, but she still was careful to stick her needles back into the ball of yarn before pulling herself to her feet and crossing the room to see what Dipper’s schoolwork looked like. To be honest, Mabel didn’t know what to expect. He’d said this particular worksheet was for calculus. She knew she wasn’t going to understand calculus. But a part of her was curious anyway. 

She put her hands on the back of the chair across from Dipper, peering curiously at the equations. She recognized a couple of them—during their time at what she’d dubbed Alternate University, an associate of Not-McGucket’s had given her a crash course up through college algebra at Ford’s request—but most of what Dipper was doing escaped her. 

“What other classes are you taking?” She asked, rocking slightly on her palms.

Dipper pulled a calculator out of his bag, scratching at the back of his head. “Uh… AP Lit, AP Physics, AP Government. Film and home ec. Nothing crazy.”

“That sounds like so much fun! I can’t wait to start.”

Behind her, Stan coughed. Mabel glanced at him, but he was just rubbing at his neck, so she looked back at Dipper, who was now watching her with a near-guilty face. “Start?”

Mabel cocked her head. “Well, yeah, doofus,” she said, sitting down. “I can’t even tell you how pumped I am for prom. And team sports! Not to brag, but I got really good at laser badminton.” 

Dipper snorted. “I don’t think we even have a normal badminton team.”

“Guess I’ll just have to start a club! Ooh, I’ve missed being president of a club! What are the teachers like?” She leaned forward on her elbows, cheeks smushed in her palms. “Are they friendly towards out of towners? I mean, they’re locals, so probably, but still! Are there any that we have beef with?”

“Who do we have beef with?” came Ford’s voice. Mabel twisted to greet him with a grin.

“No one yet! I’m just prepping for school.”

A strange expression twisted Ford’s face for just a moment. “Ah.”

“Don’t worry, I know it’s not gonna happen overnight,” she said. A little bit of waiting was fine, she understood red tape, and really, what was a week compared to four lost years? “But I figure getting registered will only take a week or so, tops. How easily do we think we could fake a military background for you? Maybe that’d help.”

Across the room, Stan lifted his hand. “If we go with that, I know a guy.”

Mabel rolled her eyes affectionately at that, looking back at Ford eagerly. It was at that moment that his pained expression fully registered, and she felt the smile freeze on her face, before her lungs started to deflate, before he could start with a “Dear…” and trail off sadly.

Her chest felt hollow, but after a moment of holding his gaze, she dropped hers to search the tabletop. Her voice sounded tinny in her ears. “I’m not going to go to school, am I?”

“Please try to understand,” Ford was saying, “You know how the system works. If we enrolled you now, you’d have no credits. You’d have to start in ninth grade, and you’d be stuck in there for four whole years learning things you already know. You wouldn’t be with your brother. It’s enough to drive anyone crazy.”

It took a minute to get her voice to work. “No, I get it. But then what?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What am I supposed to do instead? I can’t be in class with fourteen year olds, but I can’t  _ not  _ go to high school!”

“Yes, you can,” Stan said from the chair. Mabel peeled her eyes from the wood grain to look over her shoulder at him. “You’ll do what I did, you’ll get a GED.”

After a brief, mildly surprised pause, Ford said, “I didn’t know you got a GED.”

Stan didn’t take his eyes off the TV. “Got it after you went through so I could use the community college’s research center. Your shit was really hard to figure out with only one book.”

A GED. She didn’t  _ want _ a GED. That was such a childish, stupid thing to think, and she felt like a toddler, but it was the only way she could think to phrase it. I don’t  _ want  _ that. 

Her eyes flitted to Dipper’s binder. Unsurprisingly, he had yet to scratch down a single mark, and was instead sitting and staring at the paper with his hands in his lap. She glanced at his face, though what for, she couldn’t pinpoint—a reaction? Some backup?—but he looked away quickly, and Mabel let her gaze fall back to the table. 

Mom and Dad. High school. 

God. 

Things were supposed to be better now.

_ Get it together,  _ she reminded herself sternly. This wasn’t anyone’s fault, least of all Dipper’s.  _ Things  _ are  _ better. No moping. Yeah, some things are… missing, but you’ve got more than you did three days ago, don’t you?  _ Swallowing, she forced herself to pick up her head. “Okay,” she said. “So… what do we do for that?”

“We’ll accumulate some preparatory materials,” Ford said. From the decisiveness of his words, Mabel could tell he’d put thought into this already. This was a classic example of a certified-Grunkle-Ford-Plan being outlined in live time. “Spend some time reviewing your strengths and weaknesses. With any luck, you’ll be graduating before Dipper.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Mabel saw Dipper’s head jerk up, and she suppressed a small smile. A little friendly competition would make this a little better, she supposed. She nodded again, with a small glance at Ford, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. 

“Okay,” she said again. “I’m, um… I’m gonna go make dinner. What do you guys want?”

“Whatever you pick’s fine,” Dipper said quickly. He tapped his pen on his paper, like he was impatient to get to the work. Lucky.

Lucky? No, no, she didn’t think he was  _ lucky,  _ she wasn’t that cruel. He’d lost stuff too! He’d lost her, he’d lost any semblance of a normal childhood, he’d lost Mom and Dad too, he wasn’t lucky. She didn’t think like that, she was better than that.

Try as she might, though, she couldn’t stamp down the envy that reared its head as she stared at his homework. Normal (if, she conceded, advanced) regular old homework. The longer she stared, the heavier it felt, so she nodded twice and made for the kitchen without another word. Behind her, she heard Stan say something, then Ford’s sigh and footsteps.

He followed her into the kitchen, but to his credit, didn’t say anything, just watched her huff and start taking things out of cabinets. For a moment, the only sound was her putting expired spices down on the countertop as she sifted through containers, before Ford said, “What are you making?”

“Pizza,” she decided, pulling the flour off of the shelf and setting it down with a low thump. “At least, we’re going to try.”

“You know that if you need something to punch,” Ford said lightly, “All you have to do is ask. Yes, we’re home, but I see no reason to let either of us fall out of practice, and I daresay I present a better challenge than a lump of dough.”

Salt and measuring cup in hand, Mabel turned to the sink. “I might just take you up on that,” she said quietly. The tap sputtered, then  _ wooshed _ out a stream of cold water. It wouldn’t hurt her in the slightest to let out some steam with a sparring match, and although Ford was certainly stronger than her, she was fast enough that their matches had started to challenge him almost as much as they challenged her. It would be good for both of them. 

“Would you like for me to make the sauce?” Ford pressed. 

“Yes, please.” She shut off the tap and set the cup on the counter, then opened a drawer. She paused, staring at the knives inside. Scoffing, she shut it, a little harder than she meant to. The next drawer had also been rearranged.

“What are you looking for?” His voice was that special brand of uncertain gentleness, the one that meant he wanted to help but had no idea how.

Mabel made a twisted motion with her hand as she glanced around. “The can opener, for your tomato sauce. It used to be in there.”

“I can find it,” Ford assured her, reaching out to cover her hand in his. “You can just worry about the dough, I’m capable of hunting down a tool.”

“I know, I just—it moved,” she said, frustrated. Ford tugged a little on her wrist, so she looked at him. “What?”

“Are you okay?” He asked, brown eyes serious. 

“It’s just—“ she cut herself off, but Ford nodded encouragingly. “It’s just a lot. And it’s all different from I thought it would be, and… I don’t know.”

“That’s alright,” Ford said, letting go of her hand. Once upon a time, on the front end of their relationship, he had tried to reassure her with ‘that’s perfectly normal’, but when a righteously annoyed tween Mabel had barked that  _ nothing about their situation was any kind of normal,  _ he’d adapted his vocabulary accordingly. “As long as you don’t go clamming up on me.”

His words gave Mabel pause. Was he worried about that? “Oh, c’mon, we both know if anyone’s gonna clam up, it’s you.” 

“I certainly don’t plan on it,” he said. “Just… just because we’re back doesn’t mean anything’s different.” Mabel half-snorted at his choice of words, and he winced as he realized his misstep. “Between us, I mean. It’s just like any time we find somewhere new. Pineses against the world. We just happen to have a larger team now.”

_ But what if it all gets ripped out from under our feet again?  _ She wanted to ask. She was so used to it now, she was scared to try and dig her heels in. It wasn’t as though she needed her life to revolve around her brother and uncles, but the idea of them leaving her again was terrifying. Leaving, leaving. It was the wrong word. Not leaving, just… not needing?  _ Okay, you’re safe, about time. Back to our individual lives that we’ve been somewhat maintaining this entire time. We love you, good luck _ . And then they might as well be in another dimension. And what of the town itself? If she wasn’t Mabel, she’d have to meet everyone again. She wouldn’t even belong here. 

Instead of saying that, she forced a smile. “Yeah.”

Ford ruffled her hair. “I’m serious. You’ve received too much unsavory news since we returned. When you’re ready to talk, if you need to, you know I’m ready to listen.” He was now turning back to the other counter, rifling through tools to find the can opener.

Mabel inhaled sharply, returning to her workspace as well. Behind her, Ford made a small, triumphant noise, and a clattering of metal led Mabel to conclude that he’d located the tool. 

They worked in silence, and Mabel found this meal-prep much more comfortable than the crowded pancake breakfast they’d made on Friday. Of course she’d loved catching up with her family, there was something wonderful about being able to enjoy their company all at once, but working like this, wordless communication with Ford at the end of a long day as they did what they needed to do, was much more familiar. A part of her wondered if this made her a bad person. She was finally home, and she was reveling in habits developed out of necessity?

She shook her head, frowning, and directed her frustration with herself into the soft dough under her hands. Vegetables were chopped, pizzas were assembled, and the family was called in to eat. Pacifica, who had been been reading for class upstairs, was nowhere to be seen.

“I’ll go get her,” Mabel said, setting the baking sheet down on the stove top and peeling off her over mitts, tossing them on the counter before she went upstairs. She knocked on the doorframe of their room before cracking the door open. “Hey, Paz? Dinner’s ready.”

Pacifica looked up from her book, blinking quickly. “Oh. Thanks. I’ll be down in just a minute.”

Mabel hesitated. That wasn’t regular ‘I was reading’ blinking. “Are you okay?”

Pacifica shut the book, setting it down on the table next to her. “Yeah. It’s just been a really long week, and I guess it’s catching up to me.”

“Oh, I feel you,” Mabel said. “If you wanna talk about it, I’m right next door.” She gestured lamely at her bed, not six feet from Pacifica’s. 

Pacifica snorted. “Thanks, Mabel. You said dinner?”

Trying to decide whether the snort had been a ‘why would I talk to  _ you’  _ or a ‘why would you want to listen to me’, Mabel nodded, and they headed back to the kitchen. Once everyone was seated and eating, Waddles snuffling around below the table he could barely fit under, Ford cleared his throat.

“There’s an elephant in the room that we have to address,” he said, with a glance around the tabletop. Mabel cocked her head as he added, “Or, rather, in the laboratory.”

Across the table, Stan frowned. “The rift?”

“The rift,” Ford confirmed darkly. “Now, I’ve been considering possible ways to seal it, and yesterday,” and here he pointed his pizza at Pacifica for emphasis, “Our conversation gave me an idea.”

Mabel gave Pacifica a nudge with her elbow. Pacifica just looked confused. “What did she say?” Mabel asked.

“I assume you’re all familiar with the UFO,” Ford said. All around the table, nods. Dipper and Pacifica from personal experience, Stan and Mabel from word of mouth. “Did the two of you see any adhesive while you were in there?”

Mabel looked from her brother to her roommate. They glanced at one another, then Dipper said, “I mean… maybe? Not that I know of, though.”

Ford sucked on his teeth. “I see. In that case, I’ll have to check it myself. If there’s any left, I--it’s the strongest substance I’ve ever encountered, other dimensions included. It should be enough to seal the rift and prevent Bill’s entry entirely.”

Mabel rested her chin in her palm. “So, what, we go tomorrow to look?”

“That’s the plan,” Ford confirmed. 

Dipper made a small noise. When Mabel looked at him, he cleared his throat and said, “All-- um, all of us?” 

Simultaneously, Mabel felt sympathy and annoyance. The former, because she understood how badly he must want this kind of adventure with Ford, but the latter, she couldn’t even explain. She wished she had a reason for being annoyed, but she didn’t. She just was. 

“I-- if Stan has to run the, ah, the  _ Shack,  _ as it is--” Ford began, but Dipper shook his head eagerly. 

“It’s closed on Mondays.”

“Don’t you have school?” Stan grumbled.

Dipper shrugged. “I mean, I can just stay home--”

“We can go after you guys get back,” Mabel said distantly, trying to keep the sharpness out of her tone.  _ I can just stay home _ . “I mean, we could also go tonight, but I’m kind of tired.” She didn’t look at Pacifica. 

The table jostled suddenly as Waddles bumped it from below. Mabel’s glass wobbled dangerously, but she steadied it before it could fall over. Mabel and Stan simultaneously addressed the pig.

“Agh! See, swine,  _ this _ is the reason you live outside--”

“You gotta be more careful, buddy!”

Mabel gave her handsome boy a scratch on the snout before sitting back up. At least Waddles hadn’t changed in anything but size.

“Tomorrow afternoon, then,” Ford said, drawing everyone back to the present.

Mabel glanced at Dipper. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! Every story has to have low points to make the highs higher, so unfortunately we're starting on such a downhill trend. It'll be gloomy for a while, but I promise if you stick around we'll get bright :) Stay safe!


	14. Just What Every Fanfic Reader Craves: A Day of Menial Labor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I refuse to believe that Ford got that much portal deconstruction done by himself. Stan's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing sibling interactions is super fun actually! The scope of the relationship is like none other on earth. One minute, you're being needlessly antagonistic, and the next, you're like 'yeah, where are we hiding the body?' Anyway, if you're an only child, please keep this dichotomy in mind as you read <3

_ October 22, 2016 _

Despite his years-long vendetta against cartoons due to his own deeply rooted childhood trauma, Stan had never been able to disagree with the fat orange cat. 

Mondays sucked. 

During the school year, there weren’t enough tourists to justify keeping the Shack open and staffed during the day, so Mondays frequently provided at least a few extra hours working down in the basement. Sometimes, while he was below, he’d spot Soos on the security cameras, letting himself in through the gift shop and fixing up whatever exhibits had been tweaked or damaged over the weekend. 

He thought, fleetingly, that this Monday might be an improvement on Mondays of the past. Ford was home. Mabel was home. Dipper and Pacifica were going to school. Everything was fine and as it should be, and he could take the day off.

Of course, his daring venture into the world of optimism was quickly crushed when, after waving a farewell to Dipper and Pacifica as they headed out the door, Mabel returned to the den with an expectant look between him in his armchair and Ford at the table. “I’m gonna go get dressed, but then are you guys gonna be ready?”

Stan sipped at his coffee. “Ready for what?”

“We’ll deal with the rift once we’ve located the adhesive, but in the meantime, we need to dismantle the portal,” Ford explained. He finished scribbling something in a small brown leather notebook, then flipped it shut. “Go ahead, hurry up. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Mabel nodded quickly and set off upstairs. Stan let her footsteps recede before glancing over Ford. “So, what, we take it down and no more rifts form?”

“That, and no one else can ever turn it on,” Ford confirmed. He wound a cord around the journal, then stood up. Underneath the table, Waddles snuffled indignantly at the sudden motion. “Oh, apologies, pig,” Ford said. “I’d advise you to go get yourself ready as well, Stanley. Sturdy boots, anything you’ve got to protect your hands and feet. The more people working, the sooner we can get it done, and the sooner that thing’s decommissioned, the better.”

“I built the damn thing twice in slippers, Ford, it’s not exactly rocket science,” Stan grumbled. He could have sworn that the corner of Ford’s mouth twitched, but if it gave way to a smile, Ford turned abruptly before Stan could see it. 

“Be quick,” he said, and he left the room. After maybe three minutes of shrugging and returning his attention to the game show on the television, Mabel stampeded back down the stairs. In jeans and a t-shirt, she looked much more like a regular teenager than the space desperado that had clambered out of the portal. She’d even tied her hair back into a ponytail, with a couple of little braids on the sides, adorned with something colorful that he couldn’t quite make out. 

“You got something in your hair,” he said helpfully. 

Mabel lifted a hand to touch the side of her head. “Yeah, they’re beads.” She smiled as she said so, as if she were remembering something, then added, “It’s on purpose.”

“What, did you find them in your craft stuff? Or did you pick them up yesterday?”

“No, they were a gift,” Mabel said. Stan supposed that that would explain the smile. Mabel continued, “I can’t even remember the name of the dimension, but it was nice.” Lightly but insistently, she pushed on his arm, nudging him out of his chair and towards the basement. “C’mon. I want that thing out of the Shack for good.”

Grumbling but unable to disagree with that sentiment, Stan allowed her to tug him towards the gift shop. Halfway out of the living room, though, he shrugged his hand down and reached under the table to swat at Waddles’s hindquarters. “C’mon, up you get.”

“Oh, come on, he’s not bothering anybody!” Mabel protested.

Stan shrugged as Waddles stood and obediently headed for the porch door. “He’s almost too big to fit through the door, no way I’m letting him stay in here without supervision.” He crossed the room to open the door to the outside, scratched between Waddles’s ears for being a good pig, and then followed Mabel to the gift shop. She pushed through the  _ employees only  _ door and gestured towards the vending machine. Oh, yeah, she wouldn’t know the code, would she? 

Stan punched it in. Over his shoulder, Mabel said, “Did anyone ever notice that the buttons for AB1C3 were so much more worn out than the two, the pound, and the asterisk?”

His finger stalled over the 3, and he frowned at the keypad as he processed her question. “What?”

“The buttons,” Mabel said, nodding at his hand. “The oils on people’s fingertips wear them down over time, and I mean, unless you put the best snacks in the threes and ones so customers hit them too, wouldn’t it be kind of a giveaway?”

Stan squinted, shrugged, and hit the button. “Kid, the kind of people who come here aren’t the ones who’re gonna notice if a couple of vending machine buttons get hit more than the others.”

The hydraulics hissed, and the machine swung forward. Stan started down the stairs, and Mabel followed him with an, “I guess that’s fair.”

He hit the landing and called the elevator. Behind him, Mabel said, “So, you were down here every night for thirty years, that much I pretty much get, but did your schedule change after I went through?”

She said it so nonchalantly, like she was making conversation by commenting on the weather. He knew that Mabel wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, but honestly, it would be easier to understand if she  _ was  _ resentful. 

“I mean, beyond keeping Dipper out?” He asked, rubbing at his face. “A little, at first. We, uh, we had to tell the town you went missing. In the woods, y’know?”

He glanced at her, and she nodded, listing her head thoughtfully. “Smart. Your idea?”

“Me and Dip’s first joint venture,” Stan said. They entered the elevator, and he hit the lab floor. “He and Soos managed to hook McGucket’s memory gun up to those cops’s headset frequencies, so they left us alone pretty quick, but you were still gone, and the town wasn’t gonna buy that Dipper was you. They knew both of you. If either of you were gonna go recluse, they knew it was gonna be him.”

Mabel snorted. “Yeah, that’s true.” He thought she might fall quiet for a minute, but then she said, “How’d the town take it?”

“Oh, they were looking for you for weeks,” Stan said. “Your folks came up, Shermie came up. It was a whole thing. I thought Dipper was gonna go nuts, because all he wanted was to get down here and actually start looking for you, but we had to spend days in the woods so nobody got suspicious.”

“But then after things settled down,” she pressed. “You and Dipper were on normal time?”

“Why’s it matter?”

She shrugged. “I just really hope you guys weren’t running on an hour of sleep a night for four straight years.”

“Nah, I tried that at the start, with Ford, but, uh, between you and me, that technique goes south real quick.” The elevator doors opened, and Stan headed first through the lab, talking over his shoulder. “Better to stop when you’re tired and start again with a clear head. You try to power through like that, you can’t really think straight. You start seeing things.”

He pushed open the door and stopped after three steps onto the lab floor. Behind him, Mabel commented, “I’m sorry you had to go through the first part alone.”

Stan glanced at her. His question must have been written on his face, because Mabel just gestured around her. “Ford going through, having to figure out what to do to get this thing running again. Being on your own sucks. It sucks that you had to work alone for so long. In a weird way, I’m glad you had Dipper. And I’m glad he had you.” She kicked at the dusty floor, apparently having said all she intended to on the matter. 

Stan studied her for a moment, then reached out and ruffled her hair. “Yeah, well. We’re all back together now, and that’s what it was all about, so. S’worth it.”

She grinned. The elevator shuddered again, and Stan glanced over his shoulder to see Ford stride through the door, barely giving them a second glance as he breezed straight past them to the emergency override controls. Stan watched him kneel beside the booth and flip open a panel on the side, apparently looking for something.

“Everything okay?” Stan asked. 

“Yes, yes,” Ford said distantly. “Just a quick reacquaintance with the old thing.” He stood up, shrugging off his tan coat and folding it neatly on top of the booth, before turning back around and clasping his hands. Without the coat, he was wearing a simple blue t-shirt, stamped with the slogan  _ Built Ford Tough.  _

Stan spoke again. “Stanford?”

“What?” Ford said, sharper this time.

“What are you wearing?”

He glanced at it. “Mabel got it for me yesterday.” 

Stan shot a look at the great niece in question. “You spent my hard earned paycheck on a car shirt made for soccer dads who think they’re rednecks?”

Ford huffed, pushing his glasses up his nose in a dignified motion. “It’s  _ ironic _ , Stanley.”

“Yeah, Stanley,” Mabel echoed, making a quick face before darting away towards the portal. 

Stan grumbled. “Waste of money, more like.” 

Ford cracked his knuckles. “Well, regardless of you and your pocketbook’s opinions, it’ll do just fine for the task at hand.” It had been a long time since Stan had heard the sound of six joints popping instead of five, but it was familiar enough to make him exhale through his nose with a small smile. He looked up from his brother’s hands at the sound of his name. 

“Hmm?”

“Fiddleford’s device,” Ford prompted. “You said that it, and I quote, “got rid of all of the zero-gravity shit.’”

“Yeah,” Stan said, stepping closer to the portal so he could peer up at where the small hunk of metal had been installed. “None of the pulses of it like you’d have seen.”

“Oh, like last time?” Mabel asked. “When everything started floating?” Stan noticed that she tactfully danced around the unfortunate truth that it had been one of those pulses that got her sucked into the portal in the first place.

“Yeah,” Stan confirmed. “So there weren’t any this time.”

Ford walked up to him, standing even at Stan’s shoulder. “That’s beneficial,” he said thoughtfully. “We won’t need to worry about cutting through any warped pieces.” After a weighted look over the portal, he glanced at Stan. “Well, I’m assuming you have tools. Shall we get started?”

Stan nodded, watching as Mabel poked around the wires towards the back of the machine. “Yeah, I’ll go grab a drill or something.”

The drill was on the floor, but the extra battery was in the observation room, so Stan had to go dig around in the desk. He was careful not to disrupt the cabinet that the rift was stashed in. On the screens, he was interested but not entirely surprised to see Soos. Interest gave way to grudging curiosity when Soos made eye contact with the camera (well, one of them, anyway), waved, and then pointed at a man walking up behind him, who Stan identified after a moment as McGucket.

He trudged back out, pressing the drill and the battery into Ford’s hands. “Here, you get started. I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Ford said, confused.

Stan waggled his fingers as he backed up towards the door. “Just checking something.”

Mabel said something that dragged Ford’s attention back to her, so Stan took the opportunity to slip away without further explanation. He punched the elevator’s button, standing back with crossed arms and absently watching the floor gauge climb. Then he snorted to himself.  _ Built Ford Tough.  _ No way in hell his brother would have been caught dead in something like that last time Stan had seen him. But it was pretty funny.

Up the stairs, out the machine, and there they were. Stan could hear their conversation from halfway down the stairs, catching words like ‘guests’ and ‘kitchen staff’. Must be talking about McGucket’s house, then. Stan had never been, but he heard plenty about it. McGucket had hired Soos’s girlfriend as some kind of director, and from the way Soos gushed about her, Melody was doing a bang-up job. 

They stopped talking when the vending machine opened, though. Soos cut himself with an, “Oh, hey, Mr. Pines! What are you doing downstairs?”

Stan gestured vaguely over his shoulder with his thumb. “Takin’ it apart. What are you doing here?”

“Well, I was just on my way in because as you know, I got nothing else to do,” Soos said, “And I saw Mr. Old Man McGucket here on a walk, and I said to myself, ‘Hey! I wonder if anybody told him that they’re back!’ So I rolled down my window and pulled up to the sidewalk and told him that they’re back, and here we are!”

McGucket nodded. Stan squinted at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the middle of a high stress presidential campaign? And you can just take a Monday off like that?”

McGucket’s eyes were wandering over the gift shop. “My team has their weekly whatchamacallit gatherin’s about this time of day, and they all know my agenda. But they’re back alright? The stabilizer worked?”

“Yeah, perfectly,” Stan said. “But, c’mon, there’s no way you didn’t know that. There weren’t any flying cars around town.”

McGucket shrugged. “Do y’all need an extra set of hands disassembling?” He put his hands in his pockets, thumbs tapping at his belt. It was a small motion, but it was obvious to Stan that he was nervous. 

Between Ford’s journals and Dipper’s recount of McGucket’s wacko cult tapes, it didn’t take the brain of a crazy genius to figure out that there was something going on between this once animalistic mechanic-turned-politician and his nerd brother. Stan had only had secondhand (and, let’s be honest, largely biased) accounts, so he’d never been able to tell if they’d actually figured out what  _ something  _ was before McGucket quit. Either way, it wasn’t any of his business, but it still made for better reading material than another one of Ford’s impossible equations. Now that Ford was back, though… c’mon, it wasn’t like Stan had missed the way Ford nearly jumped clean into the air anytime someone said McGucket’s name. For someone who’d spent thirty four years having to be stealthy to survive, he was sure acting like an open book. Ford would probably hate to have something like this sprung on him. McGucket, come downstairs, unexpectedly? While he was wearing that stupid shirt?

Stan grinned. “Step right up, gentlemen.”

Just as he had nights before, McGucket seemed to steel himself as they descended. When the elevator opened, Stan glanced at him before heading into the control room. He looked a little green, though that could have been the poor lighting. 

Stan rapped his knuckles on the desk as he passed it, pushing the door open. “Hey, good news, I found some extra hands!”

Mabel glanced over her shoulder as she propped the ladder against the wall and waved cheerily. Atop the portal, Ford glanced up from his drill and idly took in Stan, then Soos, then froze. No one said anything. 

“How come you made the old man do the climbing?” Stan asked to break the silence. Mabel made sure the ladder was balanced, then approached the group, giving Soos a fist bump with her yellow utility glove.

“I tried to talk him out of it,” she said. “He insisted.”

As Stan glanced up at his brother, Ford made a reproachful face, then rolled his eyes and repositioned the drill. Mabel spoke louder to combat the mechanical noise. “Mr. McGucket!”

McGucket shook her hand. “I’m glad to see you survived!” 

“I’m glad to see you’ve regained your memories and sanity!” Mabel returned brightly. 

“This is a normal reunion!” Soos said.

Stan opened his mouth to say something else (possibly helpful, possibly antagonistic; he hadn’t decided yet), but the earsplitting scrape of metal cut him off. He winced and fiddled with his hearing aid, looking up as Ford shoved a sheet of alien steel off of the top of the portal. It fell to the dirty floor with a bang.

“It’s all still alien materials, correct?” McGucket said, glancing at Stan. The gesture made him lift his chin.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Anything I could salvage from the original, I used, but Dipper had to go get a couple of spare parts now and again.”

McGucket nodded sagely, squinted at the sheet of metal on the ground, and then said, “Part of my promise to the American people is that by the end of my first term, every school aged child will have a five-ton spider robot with bully-neutralizing capabilities.” 

He looked expectantly at Stan, who had absolutely no clue how to respond other than to stroke his chin and say, “Go on…”

“Well, I reckon it’s better to repurpose these materials into something useful than to just leave them lying around here where anybody could rebuild the portal.”

Mabel shifted her stance, stroking her own chin. “Okay, back up. What promise?”

“Oh!” McGucket said. “I guess you wouldn’t know. I’m running for president.”

“You’re  _ what?”  _

Belatedly, Stan realized that the drilling had stopped. Ford was sitting up, staring slack-jawed at the gathered foursome.

Swiftly, Mabel threw Stan a meaningful glance. He didn’t understand it until she side-stepped between McGucket and the portal and piped up, “So this would be like a campaign donation?”

“That’s an excellent way of phrasing it,” Stan agreed.

McGucket nodded with a distracted “That sounds about right.”

Over his niece’s shoulder, Stan could see Ford attempting to climb down from the portal. “Mabel, would you get the ladder?” 

Mabel continued as though she couldn’t hear him. “Okay, so if that’s settled, we can just move pieces upstairs and then to your junkyard, right? Or-- hang on, that’s no good, it’d rust.”

“No, ma’am, not this metal,” McGucket said, snapping his attention back to Mabel. “It’s immune to the elements.”

Mabel grinned. “Delightful! Well, then, in  _ that  _ case-- Soos, did you bring your truck?”

“You know it, dude.”

She turned on her heel, gesticulating in a circular motion as she addressed Ford. “Keep them coming down, okay? We can move them up out of the lab.” 

Turning back to Stan, Soos, and McGucket, Mabel clapped her hands together, then pointed at McGucket. “You’d probably be better off helping disassemble. You okay with a wrench?”

“I certainly am!” McGucket agreed readily. 

“Hang on, I think I know that bucket of bolts as well as he does by now,” Stan said, frowning. 

The look Mabel threw him was wide-eyed and imploring, but less in a  _ puppy dog eyes  _ kind of way and more a  _ what the hell are you doing _ . With a gritted, toothy smile more reminiscent of a shark than a human grin, she said, “That might be true, but he designed it. Besides, I’m not sure he’s the best fit for the manual labor department.”

McGucket glanced at her as if offended, but Stan caught her drift when she not-so-subtly jerked her head over her shoulder. She wanted to give them privacy? Ugh, fine.

“Whatever,” he shrugged. “Soos, go pull your truck up to the porch, eh?”

“On it,” Soos said seriously, and he turned on his heel and pushed through the door. 

Mabel looked around, darting off towards a worktable and muttering ‘wrench’ under her breath. Stan gave McGucket an apologetic look, then approached the sheet of metal at the base of the portal. When it was just over a foot away, Ford yelped, and Stan jumped back as a second sheet hit the ground hard, throwing up dirt where his toes had been a second prior. 

“Hey, give a guy some warning, will ya?”

“Sorry!” Ford called back. Guilt over nearly creating a real-life Flat Stanley assuaged, his voice hardened. “But you’re one to talk! What did you do, invite him over?”

Stan glanced over his shoulder to see Mabel pressing a wrench into McGucket’s hands. “Nah, just saw him on the security cams with Soos,” he said honestly. “He was coming down either way.”

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed loudly.  _ Drama queen,  _ Stan thought idly, squatting to pick up the newest sheet of metal. 

“It’s heavy,” Ford said helpfully.

“Yeah, I know.”

Ford continued, voice lower now. “It’ll be easier if two of you carry one sheet at a time, but don’t let Mabel take too much. She hurt her hand.”

“Yeah, I saw,” Stan said. “Soos’ll be back in a minute, he can help me with the big ones.” He let his voice get louder as Mabel got close. “Don’t sweat it, Sixer, it’s just moving pieces.”

“You ready?” Mabel asked, bending to pick up the other side of the piece. “One, two, up!”

She pivoted before he could, picking her way backwards across the lab. Stan watched as her face twisted slightly, and she adjusted her grip, but she didn’t say anything until they were waiting for the elevator well beyond the control room door. 

“You should have said something when you saw him on the cameras,” Mabel said reproachfully.

Stan raised an eyebrow, then lifted his gaze to watch the floor gauge dial down to one. He hefted the sheet, nodding to her just as the doors groaned open. “Well, I didn’t. Smooth operating in there, though.”

Mabel backed into the elevator, and once Stan was inside, lowered her half to the floor. He felt her watching as he leaned over to hit the button. The doors shut again, and the car was quiet until Mabel laughed softly. “He’s gotta be mortified, wearing that shirt.”

Stan chuckled too. “Right?”

“I guess he’ll get over it soon enough,” she said, resting her chin on the edge of the sheet. “A goofy tee is the least of their problems.”

“Do you know what happened to them?” Stan asked, surprised. 

Mabel squinted at him. “Yeah, but… I don’t really think it’s my place to say. Why, what do you know?”

“What Ford wrote in his journals,” Stan said. “And what Dipper remembered from that cult. Did you know McGucket founded a cult?”

“I was there for that.”

“Oh, yeah.”

The elevator opened again, and they picked the metal back up. Stan gestured for Mabel to lead the way up the stairs, and the conversation was exchanged for focusing on not dropping the sheet until they hit the gift shop. After they passed Soos, who scrambled to get the door, and tossed the sheet into his truck, Stan dusted off his hands theatrically. “But, y’know,” he said, continuing as though she’d just spoken. “The guy was paranoid in his last entries, so I kind of just took it all with a grain of salt.”

Mabel leaned against the checkout counter next to Soos. “Okay, that much is fair.”

Soos waited a moment for them to catch their breath, then said, “Should we get back down there?”

Mabel shook her head. “No, let’s give them a minute.” Soos glanced at Stan, and when he nodded in agreement, relaxed. 

>>>>> • <<<<<

Eventually, they did go back down. Stan had to shoo Mabel away from the larger panels, and although she squinted and shot a glare between him and Ford, she picked up smaller pieces without complaint. At some point, McGucket requested that she sort through the more delicate inner pieces of the portal for anything that could be salvaged, and she sat in the control room and did just that. Every time Stan and Soos passed through, she’d made a dent in her pile of wires and chips. 

They worked past noon. By the time they quit, the portal’s skeleton was nearly completely exposed. It was nearly three in the afternoon, and everyone was feeling the day’s work. After some brief collaboration in the kitchen and Mabel darting outside to let the pig back in, they sprawled in the den and ate. 

“I can’t believe you found the time to build that whole place  _ and  _ the bunker,” Mabel commented to McGucket. She was sitting on the floor against the wall, happily snuggled up against Waddles. Dipper had filled Stan on in this a couple of years back, and although Stan wasn’t happy about it, it did explain some concerning journal entries.

“Well, believe it or not, I contracted that one,” McGucket admitted sheepishly, with a glance at Ford. “Workin’ on this portal was takin’ most of my focus, and at the time, it wasn’t all too difficult to find a construction group willin’ to make a nuclear fallout shelter on a budget.”

“Still, there were some pretty bold design choices in that place,” Soos said thoughtfully. “That defense mechanism? State of the art! Terrifying. But so innovative.”

“At the time, I thought it was kind of overkill,” Mabel said, “But then we met that Shapeshifter and I got where you were coming from.”

McGucket winced. “Oh, yeah. Almost forgot about that one.” Stan might not have known what in the god damn hell these nerds were talking about, but it was obvious that no, McGucket hadn’t come anywhere close to forgetting whatever it was.

“Soos, I hadn’t realized you met Shifty too,” Ford said with a careful look at McGucket. 

“Oh, for sure, dude,” Soos said. “Wendy was there, too,” he added to Stan. “Way back when we were all just trying to figure out who the Author was. Heck, that Shifty thing had us convinced it was him for a minute!”

Stan spotted Ford curling his lip at his glass of water. Mabel must have told him about this adventure at some point. McGucket said, “You didn’t let him get a look at Stanford’s journal, did you?”

“No, he saw it,” Mabel said dejectedly. “But it’s okay, he’s back in his tube. Unless…?” She trailed off, looking at Soos, who shook his head.

“I haven’t been back down there, and I don’t think Dipper would go, either.”

“No, you’re right,” Mabel said. “Although, I mean, maybe at this point, we could go check it out?” She looked at Ford. “Maybe we could reason with him. Might be nice to have a shapeshifter on our team.”

“No,” Ford said firmly, putting his glass down with a solid thunk. “Trusting him was a mistake, and it’s one we won’t make again.”

Stan took a sip of Pitt, eyebrows raised and pointedly not looking at anyone in the room. Luckily, a distraction came in the form of Dipper and Pacifica chattering loudly (Stan could have sworn he heard Dipper say “No, Mothman  _ wouldn’t  _ support a higher minimum wage”), then freezing as they entered the tense air of the living room.

Ford was the first to break the silence. “Hello, kids,” he said, and although it was awkward and perhaps a little stiff, it wasn’t unpleasant. “How was school?”

“Fine,” Dipper said, setting his bag on the stairs. “Did you guys make any progress on the portal?” He crossed the room to slide down the wall next to Mabel. She tore her sandwich in half and offered him part of it, and he accepted it.

“Yeah,” Mabel said. “McGucket is apparently running--well, I guess you’d know that he’s running for president, but still--and he needs it for campaign robots.”

“No, they’re not campaign robots, they’re for after,” Pacifica said. She hadn’t moved to take a seat, instead standing awkwardly in the doorway, and it was from there that she glanced at McGucket. “Right?”

“Correct,” McGucket agreed. “I’d hate to see it go to waste.” 

He stood up, rubbing his hands together and looking around. “I hate to break this up, but I’d better be getting back. Tate will want to catch me up. Mr. Ramirez, could we…?”

“Sure, dude,” Soos said, “But it’s Soos. Mr. Ramirez sounds really weird.”

“Soos, then,” McGucket agreed. “Thanks for the food.”

“Thanks for the work,” Stan replied. “See you tomorrow, Soos.”

As they headed out the door, Pacifica followed them with an “I’ll be right back” to the Pineses. Stan watched the door shut behind her in mild curiosity, then shrugged and shook his head. 

Dipper polished off what Mabel had given him, then glanced around the room, clearly high energy. “So, when are we leaving?”

Ford glanced out the window. “I suppose now is as good as any time.” He stood up, adjusting his red sweater (He’d disappeared to change as soon as the work was done downstairs) and looking at the twins, who were clambering to their feet. Then he looked at Stan, who was decidedly not getting up. “Are you coming, Stanley?”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” Stan said. He could have touted some line about how Dipper would kill him if he got in the way of actually getting to spend some time with Ford, or about how someone needed to make sure no more gnomes snuck into the gift shop, but really, his shoulders were sore, and he didn’t feel like it. No one needed to hear that, though, so he just waved them along. “Don’t come back without your galactic Gorilla Glue.”

“Alien adhesive,” Ford corrected.

“Extraterrestrial epoxy!” Mabel said brightly, holding up her good hand to Dipper for a high five. He supplied with a grin.

Pacifica came back inside, removing her shoes and putting her backpack down beside Dipper’s. “Are you guys heading out?” 

“Aren’t you coming?” Mabel asked. Pacifica glanced between them, then shook her head. 

“No, thanks, if that’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got some make-up work from Friday that I need to get done.”

Dipper shrugged. “I mean, if you’re sure. Let’s get going, then!” 

Pacifica stood to the side as the trio headed out the door, then picked her backpack back up and made her way to the table. As she passed him, Stan said, “Hey, pass me the remote, would you?” 

She paused, then glanced around and obliged. He powered up the TV, and it started playing some hoaky faux-psychologist show. He watched her put a couple of books on the table, then said, “What’d you run after McGucket for?”

“Oh,” she said. “Nothing, really. I just asked if he needed any interns for his campaign.”

Stan looked back at the TV, mulling this over. Politics were boring and the players were worse people than he ever consorted with, but McGucket was far from rotten. There were worse campaigns to work for. “Why would you want to do that? It’s all coffee runs and meetings.”

“I don’t know, it’s interesting,” Pacifica said defensively. 

Stan shrugged. “Whatever you say, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been absolutely blown away by the comments you guys are leaving me. i know i'm not great about responding to them, but it's been such a blessing to read them when i'm feeling down. you don't know how much it means. stay safe! <3


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